Post-exposure prophylaxis against blood-borne viral infections among health care workers: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Health care workers face a wide range of chemical, physical, and biological occupational hazards in their jobs. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to investigate research trends on post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against blood-borne viral infections among health care workers. METHOD: Keywords related to health care workers, PEP, and blood-borne viruses were entered in the Scopus database for the period from 1950 to 27 January 2022. RESULTS: The search query returned 271 papers. The earliest publication was in 1984. The Pan African Medical Journal ranked first (n = 8, 3.0%), followed by the Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology and Journal of Hospital Infection with 6 (2.2%) papers for each. One hundred ninety-one journals took part in publishing the retrieved papers. Authors from 63 different countries took part in publishing the retrieved papers. The United States (US) ranked first (n = 53, 19.6%) followed by India (n = 26, 9.6%). The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contributed the most (n = 9, 3.3%) and ranked first in the top active institutions. The mean number of authors per paper was 4.4 and the mean number of citations per paper was 17.0. The most frequent author keywords focused on PEP, health care workers, occupational exposure, HIV, hepatitis B, anti-retroviral and needle-stick injuries. Research themes in the retrieved papers focused on knowledge/attitude/practice and management and epidemiology of occupational exposure and PEP. There was a limited number of research publications in this field. CONCLUSION: Research activity in this field needs to be strengthened in low- and middle-income countries through reporting and training of HCWs.