Impact of COVID-19 at the Ocular Level: A Citation Network Study

Sánchez-Tena, Miguel Ángel; Martinez-Perez, Clara; Villa-Collar, Cesar; Alvarez-Peregrina, Cristina

Background: The main objective of this study was to use citation networks to analyze the relationship between different publications on the impact of COVID-19 at an ocular level and their authors. Furthermore, the different research areas will be identified, and the most cited publication will be determined. Materials and Methods: The publications were searched within the Web of Science database, using “ocular”, “SARS-CoV-2”, “ophthalmology”, “eyesight”, and “COVID-19” as keywords for the period between January 2020 and January 2021. The Citation Network Explorer and the CiteSpace software were used to analyze the different publications. Results: A total of 389 publications with 890 citations generated on the web were found. It must be highlighted that July was the month with the largest number of publications. The most cited ones were “Characteristics of Ocular Findings of Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Hubei Province, China” by Wu et al., which was published in May 2020. Three groups covering the different research areas in this field were found using the clustering functions: ocular manifestations, teleophthalmology, and personal protective equipment. Conclusions: The citation network has shown a comprehensive and objective analysis of the main studies on the impact of COVID-19 in ocular disease.