Abstract Background Postoperative sleep is closely associated with recovery among patients undergoing surgery. Objective This study aimed to analyze the research status and developmental trends in postoperative sleep between 2014 and 2024. Methods Publications were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer were used to analyze the papers in terms of publication trends, countries, institutions, authors, journals, and keywords. Results A total of 964 papers were obtained for the bibliometric analysis. The number of publications on this topic has increased gradually over the last 10 years. Zhu Junchao was the most prolific author in the field, and Chung Frances had the most citations. China had the most publications, followed by the United States. Scientific institutions in China, such as China Medical University and Capital Medical University, have led the way in terms of publication numbers. A total of 40 journals have published at least 5 papers. BMC Anesthesiology , with 19 publications, ranked first in publication count. The papers published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia , Journal of Clinical Anesthesia , Anesthesia and Analgesia , Journal of Pain , and Journal of Sleep Medicine had higher citation counts on average. The high-frequency keywords were “sleep quality,” “postoperative pain,” “quality of life,” and “surgery,” while “lung cancer,” “enhanced recovery after surgery,” “breast cancer,” and “dexamethasone” emerged as new topics in this area. Conclusions There has emerged a large body of literature on postoperative sleep over the past 10 years. Authors and organizations from China are leading contributors, followed by those from the United States. Anesthesiology is a critical discipline in this field. Postoperative pain is closely related to postoperative sleep and has become a major research focus. Recent studies have mainly focused on lung cancer and breast cancer surgeries. Enhanced recovery after surgery has become an emerging keyword.
Wei et al. (Thu,) studied this question.