Mapping knowledge landscapes and emerging trends of non-contact vital signs monitoring: A bibliometric and visualization analysis from 2002 to 2023

This study makes a comparative analysis based on knowledge mapping of Chinese and English publications on non-contact vital signs monitoring and provides a reference for future research and development. Publications were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) and PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang databases from January 1, 2002 to October 31, 2023. Bibliometric analysis was performed using CiteSpace software. Information from 612 English and 543 Chinese original research articles was collected and analyzed. The maximum number of English appeared in 2022 and the maximum number of Chinese articles appeared in 2020, and the number of articles published afterward declined slightly. For the articles published in English, USA and China shared the highest number of publications. Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most published institution. Steffen Leonhardt was the highest-published author. Meanwhile, within the Chinese articles, the most productive province was Beijing. The most productive institution was the Air Force Medical University. The most productive author was Weixue Liu. The research institutions and authors of English and Chinese articles were decentralized. The hotspots of the English articles mainly were "heart rate" and "respiratory rate", and the Chinese articles focused on "temperature" and "heart rate". Concluding, the research on non-contact vital signs monitoring is in a booming phase of development at present. Non-contact heart rate monitoring is a popular research direction in English and Chinese research. In the future, research institutions and authors should strengthen their cooperation and communication to promote the development of this research area.