Abstract:

To understand worldwide research status and hotspots of Hawthorn, based on the core collection database of Web of Science (WOS), this study used the method of bibliometrics, and collected 1485 research publications with hawthorn as the keyword in the database from 1991 to 2020. The publishing time was divided into three stages according to one stage every 10 years. We analyzed the publications by the total number, countries/regions, institutions, authors, research directions, research cooperation of countries/regions, hot keywords and so on according to the classified three stages. The results showed that the number of research publications on hawthorn had an upward trend in the 30 years, China had overtaken the United States to become the country with the largest number of publications in the third-stage, but the institutions and authors with the largest number of publications in all the three stages were from the United States. In addition, the study revealed that the hot research directions of hawthorn had transformed from entomology, ecology and agronomy into the post-harvest application of food science, chemistry and pharmacology. At present, the focus of the field is the application of hawthorn in pharmacology, and the hotspot in the research is the antioxidant effect of hawthorn. Three close research cooperation networks on hawthorn have been formed in the world, all from developed countries, while China has not yet formed one. Therefore, the domestic research of hawthorn should focus on pharmacology in the future, encouraging multi-institution cooperation and systematic in-depth study on the aspects of the antioxidant effect of hawthorn in cardiovascular health and oxidative stress.

Key words: hawthorn, bibliometrics, cooperation, research direction, Web of Science