Identifying the Intellectual Structure of Patient Safety Studies

Abstract

Abstract-To explore the intellectual structure of patient safety research in the last decade, the most crucial publications, most influential scholars, as well as the correlations among the publications of these scholars were identified. In this study, bibliometric techniques (citation analysis and cocitation analysis) were used to investigate the intellectual pillars of the patient safety literature. By analyzing 123 080 citations of 2425 articles regarding patient safety, published from 2003 to 2012 and obtained from the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index databases, a knowledge network of patient safety studies was mapped. The mapping results can be used to help identify the direction of patient safety research and provide a valuable tool for researchers to access the literature in this field.Index Terms-Bibliometric technique, human factors, intellectual structure, patient safety.