Pediatric-related post-COVID condition (long COVID) research and its foundational influences: a bibliometric analysis (2020–2025)
Chagay N. Tamadon A. Kim S. Dossimov A. Issanguzhina Z. Tulegenova G. Kuldeeva G. Puxovikova N. Kim I. Mussin N.M. Sharoffidin R.S.
2026Frontiers Media SA
Frontiers in Pediatrics
2026#14
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced healthcare systems worldwide. The long-term consequences of the infection in children, the phenomenon of post-COVID-19 syndrome, have been attracting increasing attention of the scientific community. The present study is a bibliometric analysis of publications addressing post-COVID (long COVID) complications in pediatric population over the period 2020–2025. Methods and materials: The analysis covers 1,292 records retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science (search date: June 2025). Records were retrieved using post-COVID condition/long COVID terminology combined with pediatric-related keywords; therefore, the corpus includes pediatric-focused studies as well as influential general PCC publications indexed with pediatric terms and frequently cited in pediatric research. The search strategy combined post-COVID condition/long COVID terminology with pediatric terms (child/infant/adolescent), applying filters for English language, publication years 2020–2025, and document type (articles and reviews). Data were merged and analyzed in R using bibliometrix/Biblioshiny to describe productivity, collaboration, citations, and thematic structure. Results: The retrieved corpus included 1,292 publications from 84 countries/regions. The United States led productivity with 270 publications (20.9%), followed by the United Kingdom (114; 8.8%) and China (90; 7.0%). The most frequent author keywords included “COVID-19” (n = 900) and “long COVID” (n = 818). Highly cited items predominantly consisted of general or mixed-age PCC frameworks, indicating that foundational long COVID literature substantially shapes citation patterns within pediatric-tagged publications. Thematic mapping showed symptom-focused clusters as dominant, while MIS-C and cognitive impairment were less prominent in author-keyword frequency and thematic clustering within the retrieved dataset. Conclusion: The findings describe the pediatric-term–indexed PCC research landscape and highlight substantial gaps in pediatric-specific evidence, definitions, and longitudinal data. 2026 Chagay, Tamadon, Kim, Dossimov, Issanguzhina, Tulegenova, Kuldeeva, Puxovikova, Kim, Mussin and Sharoffidin.
bibliometric analysis , children , long COVID , pediatric complications , post-COVID syndrome
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Department of Children Diseases No. 2, West Kazakhstan Marat Ospanov Medical University, Aktobe, Kazakhstan
Department of Natural Sciences, West Kazakhstan Marat Ospanov Medical University, Aktobe, Kazakhstan
Department of Children Diseases No. 1, West Kazakhstan Marat Ospanov Medical University, Aktobe, Kazakhstan
Department of Surgery No. 2, West Kazakhstan Marat Ospanov Medical University, Aktobe, Kazakhstan
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Avicenna Tajik State Medical University, Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Department of Children Diseases No. 2
Department of Natural Sciences
Department of Children Diseases No. 1
Department of Surgery No. 2
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology
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