Stumbling and Growing: A Bibliometric Study of Academic Publications of Palliative Care in Mainland China for 2010–2020

Background: Mainland China is facing increasing demand for palliative care and has launched related policies after 2010. Research and publications are important for sustainable development of palliative care, and should be encouraged by policy. Objectives: This study aimed to describe the development of palliative care-related publications in Mainland China in various aspects. Design: We searched Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Ovid MEDLINE, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure for publications from Mainland China for 2010–2020, with the topic words “hospice,” “palliative care,” “end-of-life care,” or “terminal care.” The publishing year, region, impacts, journals, publication types, and topics were analyzed. Results: A total of 3682 publications were identified, 754 of them (20.5%) published in Chinese core journals or international journals. The annual publication number and impact factor rose rapidly after 2016 and dropped again in 2020. There is no specialized palliative care journal in Mainland China. The publication numbers differed significantly between East and Western China and were closely linked to the economy (R2 = 0.8120, P