Scientometric analysis of research papers by Russian investigators on medical, biological, and psychological consequences for the Chernobyl NPP accident clean-up workers (2015–2025)

The study aim is to conduct a scientometric analysis of research papers focusing on the long-term medical, biological, and psychological consequences for the Chernobyl NPP accident clean-up workers, published by Russian investigators over a decade from 2016 to 2025. Methods. We used the search tools of the Russian Science Citation Index database [https://elibrary.ru/] to identify 253 research papers. Their content was split into categories according to a developed rubricator to analyze the contribution of each research field to the overall dataset. Bibliographic records, keywords, and abstracts were exported in csv. format and fed into the VOSviewer software for frequency analysis. The software grouped the keywords into 4 clusters and the co-authors into 6 scientific schools. Based on their Total Link Strength the contribution of keyword clusters to the overall publication set was calculated. Results and analysis. The dataset of 253 Russian research papers included general issues accounting for 11.4 %, radiobiological problems – 20 %, clinical laboratory diagnostics and imaging indicators – 15.8 %, clinical medicine – 28.9 %, healthcare organization and management – 18.6 %, and psychological aspects – 5.4 %. The papers produced a relatively high demand, with 71.9 % cited at least once; the average number of citations per article was 2.99, and the h-index was 11. Furthermore, 62.1 % of papers were published in journals indexed in international bibliographic databases such as Web of Science or Scopus. The study identified the leading journals, institutions, and authors with the highest publication output. VOSviewer keyword frequency analysis elaborated the manual review results by identifying the following 4 clusters: Longterm impact on the Chernobyl NPP accident clean-up workers (total link strength 35.6 %), radiation risk (32.3 %), Chernobyl NPP accident (28.5 %), and Medical and biological research (3.6 %). In addition, VOSviewer selected 140 authors who had published two or more papers individually or in co-authorship to split them in 6 clusters representing particular research schools. Conclusion. This study expands the research horizons to study the long-term effects on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident clean-up workers. Notably, 96 % of research papers in the analyzed dataset are in free access for the authorized users of the Scientific Electronic Library.