Research Trends and Hotspots on Family Caregivers of Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder From 2002 to 2022: A Bibliometric Analysis.

Problems: Family caregivers of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (FC-ASD) have been reported to experience high levels of physical and psychological distress. This bibliometric study aimed to analyze the research trends, collaboration and knowledge dissemination pertaining to FC-ASD over the past 20 years.

Methods: This study provided an analysis of documents indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), published from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2022. VOSviewer and R Package "bibliometrix" were used to conduct performance analysis, coauthorship analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis.

Findings: A total of 9522 articles were included in this study. The number of annual publications has increased sharply. The United States of America demonstrated the highest scientific productivity, and Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published the most papers on this topic. Clusters of research hotspots suggested five primary areas received considerable attention, including caregivers' burden and psychiatric problems, needs and experiences, skills training and intervention, reports of ASD symptoms, comorbidities and prevalence, as well as specific populations and periods of FC-ASD.

Conclusions: Over the past two decades, there has been a progressive increase in the number of publications in the field of FC-ASD. There is a need for further research focused on multidisciplinary, family-centered and telehealth-based interventions, as well as qualitative studies aimed at exploring the experiences of FC-ASD.