Revisão bibliométrica sobre a produção científica relacionada a adesão de pacientes com úlcera do pé diabético aos recursos de offloading

Abstract

Introduction: Introduction: The diabetic foot is one of the main complications of diabetes mellitus, a disease considered a global epidemic. Approximately 15% to 25% of people with this complication will have foot ulcers throughout their lives. Because the reduction of loads at the injury site is necessary for healing. For this purpose, offloading devices are recommended, the effectiveness of which depends on constant use. However, the topic seems to be little addressed in studies. A quantitative analysis of the literature makes it possible to outline an overview of scientific publications and point out directions for research. In the present study, a bibliometric review of the scientific production related to the adherence of patients with diabetic foot ulcers to offloading resources was carried out. Methods: The Web Of Science (WoS) database was used. The research was carried out in the advanced search tab, using the “topics” field. Publications were identified using the posted terms: cast; offloading, off-loading, offloading device, offloading intervention, nonsurgical offloading, ulcer*, diabetic foot, adherence e patient compliance. Publications in which the topic was evaluated in the study were included. The VOSviewer Copyright software was used to analyze the bibliometric indicators of authors, journals, countries, institutions, collaboration networks and keywords. Results: A total of 64 publications were found and after manual analysis, 37 publications were retrieved. The first publication is from 1998 and the largest number of publications occurred in 2016 (n=6). The publication with the most citations was “Activity patterns of patients with diabetic foot ulceration - Patients with active ulceration may not adhere to a standard pressure off-loading regimen” (n=173). Andrew Boulton was the most cited author (n=318) and Ryan Crews the most active, with 8 publications. Diabetes Care was identified as the journal with the most publications (n=7) and citations (n=432). The United States of America was the country with the highest number of publications (n=14) and England was the country with the most citations in the scientific literature (n=519). The University of Amsterdam the most prominent institution in terms of number of publications (n=9) and citations (n=272) on the subject. Conclusions: The results of this bibliometric study provide a map of the world scientific production regarding adherence to the use of flushing by patients with diabetic foot ulcers. The theme is recent and little understood in the scientific literature indexed in WoS.