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

This study looked at 20 years of research about families caring for people with autism (9,522 studies total). Research in this area has grown rapidly. The main topics studied include: stress and mental health of family caregivers, their needs and experiences, training programs for families, autism symptoms and other conditions, and research on specific groups. The researchers suggest more work is needed on family-focused treatments, online support services, and understanding families' lived experiences.

This bibliometric analysis examined research trends on family caregivers of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (FC-ASD) from 2002-2022. Analyzing 9,522 articles from Web of Science, the study found a sharp increase in annual publications over 20 years. The United States led scientific productivity, with the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders publishing the most papers. Five primary research clusters emerged: caregiver burden and psychiatric problems, needs and experiences, skills training and interventions, ASD symptom reports and comorbidities, and studies on specific populations.

The analysis identified gaps in multidisciplinary approaches, family-centered interventions, telehealth-based services, and qualitative research exploring caregiver experiences, suggesting these as priority areas for future investigation.

The identified research gaps suggest priority areas for clinical development: multidisciplinary family support services, family-centered intervention approaches, telehealth delivery methods, and better understanding of caregiver experiences through qualitative research. These findings can guide funding priorities and clinical program development for supporting families affected by autism.

As a bibliometric analysis, this study only examined publication trends and research patterns rather than intervention effectiveness. The analysis was limited to Web of Science database and may not capture all relevant research. No quality assessment of included studies was conducted.

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. 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.

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.

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.