Global Trends in Heart Failure Self-Care Research: A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis.

Background

Adequate patient self-care is fundamental to effective heart failure (HF) management and is endorsed by international guidelines to improve clinical outcomes. Despite a growing body of evidence, the global research landscape, including publication trends, collaborative networks, and research hotspots, remains poorly characterized.

Methods

Publications on HF self-care were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection from database inception to 29 June 2026, restricted to the categories of "Nursing" or "Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems" and to English-language articles and reviews. Bibliometric analyses were performed using VOSviewer and CiteSpace for specific characteristics such as publication year, countries, institutions, authors, journals, keywords, and co-cited references.

Results

A total of 2867 publications were included, revealing a sustained increase in annual output and citations, with a marked acceleration since 2008. The United States dominated global production (1362 publications, 47.51%) and academic impact. The University of Pennsylvania was the most prolific institution, and Riegel B was the leading author. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identified four interconnected thematic domains: barriers to self-care and their prognostic impact, psychosocial factors and patient-reported outcomes, intervention strategies and healthcare delivery, and caregiver burden and dyadic interaction. Digital health, particularly telemedicine and mobile health, has emerged as a rapidly evolving frontier.

Conclusions

HF self-care research continues to grow rapidly, with future efforts focused on caregiver burden and dyadic dynamics, equitable digital health, and personalized management for older adults with multimorbidity and cognitive impairment to ultimately improve clinical outcomes and quality of life for patients with HF.