Research trends in cardiac rehabilitation following COVID-19: A cross-sectional bibliometric study

This bibliometric analysis assesses scientific progress, spatial distribution, keyword trends, thematic evolution, and research gaps in cardiac rehabilitation research (CRR), with a focused appraisal of the post-COVID-19 era (2020–2023). Scopus-indexed publications from 1948 to 2023 and 2020 to 2023 were analyzed using VOSviewer (v1.6.19) and Biblioshiny (v2.0.2). The study was strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology-compliant. A total of 9173 CRR documents were identified, showing sustained exponential growth over time. The Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention emerged as the leading source. The United State, Canada, and the United Kingdom led global output and collaboration networks. Core keywords included “cardiac rehabilitation,” “coronary artery disease,” “myocardial infarction,” “exercise,” and “rehabilitation.” Post-COVID-19 analyses revealed a discernible thematic shift, with emerging clusters and hot themes centered on “age,” “primary care,” “heart transplant,” and “exercise”. This first comprehensive bibliometric overview of CRR maps long-term growth, geographic leaders, evolving themes, and research gaps, and highlights a reorientation of priorities in the post-COVID-19 era to inform future research directions.