How Has Covid-19 Affected Published Academic Research? A Content Analysis of Journal Articles Mentioning the Virus

doi:10.2478/jdis-2021-0030

Abstract

Abstract:

Purpose: Methods to tackle Covid-19 have been developed by a wave of biomedical research but the pandemic has also influenced many aspects of society, generating a need for research into its consequences, and potentially changing the way existing topics are investigated. This article investigates the nature of this influence on the wider academic research mission.
Design/methodology/approach: This article reports an inductive content analysis of 500 randomly selected journal articles mentioning Covid-19, as recorded by the Dimensions scholarly database on 19 March 2021. Covid-19 mentions were coded for the influence of the disease on the research.
Findings: Whilst two thirds of these articles were about biomedicine (e.g. treatments, vaccines, virology), or health services in response to Covid-19, others covered the pandemic economy, society, safety, or education. In addition, some articles were not about the pandemic but stated that Covid-19 had increased or decreased the value of the reported research or changed the context in which it was conducted.
Research limitations: The findings relate only to Covid-19 influences declared in published journal articles.
Practical implications: Research managers and funders should consider whether their current procedures are effective in supporting researchers to address the evolving demands of pandemic societies, particularly in terms of timeliness.
Originality/value: The results show that although health research dominates the academic response to Covid-19, it is more widely disrupting academic research with new demands and challenges.

Key words: Covid-19, Pandemic, Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, Publication analysis, Research management

Thelwall, Mike, and Saheeda Thelwall. "How Has Covid-19 Affected Published Academic Research? A Content Analysis of Journal Articles Mentioning the Virus." Journal of Data and Information Science, vol.6, no.4, 2021, pp.1-12. DOI: 10.2478/jdis-2021-0030

Figures/Tables 3

Table 1

Content analysis code book medical category descriptions.

Category	Description
Covid-19 epidemiology	Epidemiology of Covid-19, including infection rates, patient demographics, risk factors, surveillance systems, modelling/predicting the spread of infection, transmission routes, patterns of infection, factors associated with mortality. May include some discussion of symptoms.
Covid-19 health service provision	Organisation, provision, staff or support of health services to deal with Covid-19 patients. Includes safety precautions in Covid-19 medical settings, and pharmaceutical industry developments. Excludes health-related increases/decreases in incidence (not reporting) due to pandemic conditions.
Covid-19 impact on other health services	Changes in uptake or provision of health services for purposes unrelated to Covid-19, such as cancer and surgery, due to Covid-19 healthcare or pandemic safety restrictions.
Covid-19 medical treatment	Treatments for patients infected with Covid-19, such as antivirals, plasma transfusion, and nutrition. Includes papers investigating properties of potential treatments. Includes articles discussing both diagnosis and treatment.
Covid-19 safety precautions	Methods or equipment to avoid transmission of Covid-19, other than lockdowns in general, including contact tracing, studies of the prevalence of safety measures or risk awareness (including in general medical training/settings), and urban planning. Risk and safety information communication.
Covid-19 symptoms	Common and rare symptoms, complications and side-effects of Covid-19 (including conditions “associated with” Covid-19), diagnosed at the time or post mortem, including invisible symptoms (blood changes) and studies of symptom progression over time.
Covid-19 vaccines	Development, testing, and rollout of Covid-19 vaccines
Covid-19 virology	Properties of the virus, transmission methods, genomics, mutations, receptors, animal origins, animal coronaviruses specifically linked to Covid-19.
Covid-19 with another condition	Identification or treatment of other conditions in conjunction with Covid-19 (not caused by Covid-19), including pregnancy; or discussion of other pre-existing conditions shown to exacerbate Covid-19 or to be a risk factor for it.

Table 1

Table 2

Figure 1.

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Category	Description
Context	Something about Covid-19 is relevant to the study or is used as an example or to illustrate a point in the study or explain some of the study results, but the study is not directly or indirectly about Covid-19.
Decreased importance due to Covid-19	The paper implies that the study reported is less important due to Covid-19 (e.g. because lockdown social distancing makes method impossible, or has changed the study context, or limited what was possible to investigate).
Increased importance due to Covid-19	The paper implies that the study reported is more important due to Covid-19 (e.g. because the issue investigated has been exacerbated by it) or has a Covid-19-related possible application, including treatment as a minor point.
Pandemic art	Art or culture during the pandemic.
Pandemic education	Distance or remote learning as an adaptation to lockdowns or pandemic safety precautions; includes related adaptations to pandemic learning.
Pandemic economy	Economic or business (including media and non-medical public services) effects of lockdown or strategies for before/after lockdown; either in general or for specific business sectors; also, bibliometric studies of Covid-19.
Pandemic health	Any aspect of public health, including mental health and physical activities, but not happiness or distress, during pandemic safety measures, excluding Covid-19.
Pandemic society	Any aspect of public opinion, happiness, distress, work life (except medical workers), remote working, daily life, risk of violence, politics affected by pandemic restrictions.
Irrelevant	Covid-19 is irrelevant to the paper despite being mentioned (e.g. a Covid-19 paper is cited as evidence that a method works, although it is not used for Covid-19 in the citing paper).