This study set out to map the scholarly literature on intimate partner violence (IPV) against women during the COVID-19 pandemic with the explicit goal of producing a thematic template to inform post-pandemic actions and preparedness for future crises. The authors framed the exercise as necessary because IPV during the pandemic represented a significant humanitarian problem and required synthesis of the research produced during that period.
A total of 425 documents met the study’s eligibility criteria and formed the basis of the bibliometric analysis. Key quantitative bibliometric indicators reported for this corpus included an annual growth rate of 17.08% in publications, an average of 22.45 citations per document, and an international co-authorship rate of 29.41%. The authors also identified ten documents within the set as particularly influential, though details on the selection criteria or the identity of those ten documents were not reported in the abstract.
The analysis found that the United States was the largest contributing country to the literature on IPV during COVID-19. At the institutional level, the University of California was the most prominent affiliated institution among the included publications. No further breakdown of other contributing countries or institutions was provided in the abstract.
Within the dataset, BMC Public Health emerged as the most productive journal publishing on IPV in the context of the pandemic. The study also highlighted the existence of ten highly influential documents in the research field; however, the abstract does not list those documents or present their specific themes, methodologies, or citation metrics beyond labeling them as influential.
The authors assessed themes across five time periods and reported that the dominant motor themes were mental health, depression, and social support. These themes were identified as central focal points in the pandemic-era IPV literature, implying sustained attention to the psychological and social sequelae of IPV experienced by women during COVID-19. The abstract does not provide detailed thematic maps, keyword clusters, or temporal trend plots in the public summary.
By mapping publications and extracting bibliometric metrics and thematic signals, the study aimed to generate a thematic template that could guide post-pandemic actions and preparedness for future crises. The reported dominance of mental health, depression, and social support as motor themes suggests policy and research attention should include psychological care, screening for depressive symptoms, and strengthening social support mechanisms for women experiencing IPV during emergencies. The abstract does not, however, present specific policy recommendations, prioritized research questions, or implementation strategies — only the intent to inform such actions based on the mapped literature.
The publicly available abstract provides limited methodological detail: it reports counts, rates, and high-level findings but does not specify the search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria, databases searched, time frame covered, or the methods used to define "highly influential" documents or to derive motor themes. Those methodological details and fuller results would need to be consulted in the full text for assessment of reproducibility and for use of the dataset in secondary analyses.
The bibliometric mapping identified a growing body of literature on IPV against women during the COVID-19 pandemic, quantifying productivity and impact metrics and signaling recurring thematic priorities in the field—particularly mental health, depression, and social support. The study positioned its findings as a foundation for developing thematic research agendas and informing post-pandemic preparedness, though the abstract limits access to detailed methods and the specific content of the most influential works.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declared no conflict of interest in the published abstract.