Abstract: Objective To summarize the research trend with numerous publications on patient safety during the past 10 years and find out recent hot spot in this field. Methods Four thousands publications for the past 10 years focusing on patient safety were selected in the citation database of Web of Science. Bibliometric and visualization software named Citespace was utilized for co-existence analysis and burstness detection in analyzing key words and cited references. Results Organizations distributed in developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom accounts for the majority of publications. The most frequent key words in the research field of patient safety were care, adverse event, health care, error, quality etc. Newly emerged burstness turned to attitude question naire, experience, knowledge and patient safety culture etc. Conclusions A wide and in-depth series of studies in patient safety has been carried out from 2009 to 2019 especially in developed countries with a hot spot on patient safety culture. More studies from Chinese researchers on patient safety are warranted to form China's own experience.

Key words: patient safety, bibliometrics