Knowledge mapping of barriers and strategies for clinical practice guideline implementation: a bibliometric analysis.

Objective: This study provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge structure and research hotspots regarding barriers and strategies for the implementation of clinical practice guidelines.

Methods: Publications on barriers and strategies for guideline implementation were searched for on Web of Science Core Collection from database inception to October 24, 2022. R package bibliometrix, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace were used to conduct the analysis.

Results: The search yielded 21,768 records from 3,975 journals by 99,998 authors from 3,964 institutions in 186 countries between 1983 and 2022. The number of published papers had a roughly increasing trend annually. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada contributed the majority of records. The University of Toronto, the University of Washington, and the University of Sydney were the biggest node in their cluster on the collaboration network map. The three journals that published the greatest number of relevant studies were Implementation Science , BMJ Open , and BMC Health Services Research . Grimshaw JM was the author with the most published articles, and was the second most co-cited author. Research hotspots in this field focused on public health and education, evidence-based medicine and quality promotion, diagnosis and treatment, and knowledge translation and barriers. Challenges and barriers, as well as societal impacts and inequalities, are likely to be key directions for future research.

Conclusions: This is the first bibliometric study to comprehensively summarize the research trends of research on barriers and strategies for clinical practice guideline implementation. A better understanding of collaboration patterns and research hotspots may be useful for researchers.

Spanish abstract: http://links.lww.com/IJEBH/A247.