Bibliometric Analysis of Kidney Transplant Recipients and Quality of Life Between 1987-2025 Using VOSviewer.

OBJECTIVES

Kidney transplantation is the gold standard kidney replacement therapy for patients with end -stage renal disease, prolonging the lifespan and improving quality of life of recipients by offering both emotional and psychological benefits. However, comorbid conditions, fear of rejection, drug side effects, and hospitalization can negatively affect health -related quality of life. Here, we performed a quantitative analysis of research addressing quality of life in kidney transplant recipients between 1987 and 2025.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

We used descriptive and bibliometric analysis methods to analyze publications that addressed quality of life in kidney transplant recipients in the Web of Science Core Collection database. We used the VOSviewer software program to analyze publications by year, co -authorship networks; citations by author, country, and institution; author key words; bibliographic matching analysis of authors and networks of publications, and co -citation analysis of authors.

RESULTS

From 816 publications identified during the analysis period, 743 were ultimately related to quality of life in kidney transplant recipients. According to publication year, the highest concentration was observed in 2025 (88 works ), 2024 (69 works ), and 2023 (64 works ). Authors Johnathan C. Craig, Stefan P. Berger, and Stephan J. L. Bakker had 24, 21, and 21 publications respectively, with the University of Groningen being the most active institution (41 publications ). Most publications were from the United States (n = 202 ), The Netherlands (n =70 ), and Italy (n = 69 ). Transplantation Proceedings had the most publications (n = 67 ). Most publications were in English. The most frequently used author key words were "kidney transplantation" (n = 252 ), "quality of life" (n = 105 ), and "kidney transplant" (n = 89 ).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrated the increasing interest among researchers in studying quality of life in kidney transplant recipients and revealed the diversity of issues and perspectives related to this field.