Identifying health research in the era of COVID-19: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Health improvements are considered one of the most important fields of research. Since the coronavirus disease 2019 was declared a pandemic, it might have impacted clinical and public health research in various forms. Objectives: The goal of this study is to explore health research approaches in the era of coronavirus disease 2019. Methods: In this scoping review, we reviewed published medical full-text studies and identified potential areas of interest of health research in the era the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic during the last 3 years within a higher educational setting. A bibliometric analysis was used to compare among published works. Results: Among the 93 studies that met the inclusion criteria, most focused on mental health ( n = 23; 24.7%). Twenty-one publications targeted coronavirus disease 2019 and its consequences on general health. Other studies have described hemato-oncological, cardiovascular, respiratory, and endocrinological diseases. 42 studies were cross-sectional or cohort studies and most of them published in Q1 journals. Almost half of them belonged to the Faculty of Medicine (49.5%) followed by the School of Arts, Sciences, and Psychology (26.9%). Conclusions: Health research has been demonstrated to be important, at all times, especially during crises. Therefore, researchers need to invest more efforts into seeking new medical updates in various health-related fields, regardless of their correlation with coronavirus disease 2019.