DOPING IN SPORTS: BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article provides an analytical analysis of publications on the problem of doping in sports using the VOSviewer software in the PubMed web database. 2052 publications were removed. In the period from 2015 to 2024, 6402 authors from 5093 organizations were found. The most popular authors are: Thevis M. (184 publications), Thomas A. (69), Botre F. (61), Schanzer W. (51), de la Torre X. (51), van Eenoo P. (46), Kuuranne T. (45), Geyer H. (45). There is a wave-like dynamics of the number of publications in the research period: in 2015, 190 publications were published (9.3 % of all publications for the entire period), in 2016 – 198 publications (9.6 %), in 2017 – 214 publications (10.4 %), in 2018 – 189 publications (9.2 %), in 2019 – 195 publications (9.5 %), in 2020 – 227 publications (11.1 %), in 2021 – 262 publications (12.8 %), in 2022 – 188 publications (9.2 %); in 2023 – 171 publications (8.3 %), in 2024 – 218 publications (10.6 %). In total, the program found 5607 elements (keywords). For better analysis, a threshold of 5 was specified in order to remove words that occur infrequently. 670 elements were selected for network visualization. They were grouped into 9 clusters, which characterized the main areas of scientific research. The network includes 24552 links, with a total number of 98745. It was determined that most of the keywords with the latest publication dates are aimed at researching the use of prohibited drugs by women and the effectiveness and safety of treating diseases associated with COVID-19. Older publications are aimed at improving doping control processes in sports and identifying the impact of doping on the health of athletes. The main mass of scientific publications is aimed at implementing the latest technologies for detecting doping and ensuring strict adherence to the rules of fair competition at competitions. It is precisely the solution of these problems that should become a priority scientific direction in further research.