Bibliometric analysis of healthcare professionals information behavior based on web of science

Objective To analyze the related research papers and highly cited papers of healthcare professionals’ information behavior, explore the research status and trend of this field. Methods Publications on the information behavior of healthcare professionals were searched from Web of Science. Bibliometric analysis was carried out from the aspects of number of publications, periodical distribution, productive author, subordinate organizations, distribution of countries or regions and research hotspot. Results Altogether 364 publications were collected on the information behavior of medical personnel; 36.13% (112 articles) were published in 12 journals. The themes focused on health care science services, information science and library science, medical informatics, computer science, etc. There are 18 research organizations with more than 4 articles; The United States was the strongest country in this field which has 112 articles; Publications was cited totally 4698 times, and there are 7 articles which were cited more than 110 times, the highest cited article was cited 23 times over the past 5 years. Conclusions The number of articles in the field of information behavior has been increasing, and the core journals and core research institutions have been basically formed. In the past five years, the highly cited articles reflect the research hotspots and trends. Related Researches needs to be improved in China. Key words: Healthcare professionals; Information behavior; Highly cited papers; Bibliometric analysis