Primary healthcare is the first line of defense for the containment of COVID-19 pandemic. Primary healthcare has been studied extensively by academic circles in various countries during the pandemic, but the focuses vary across these studies due to differences in primary healthcare systems in different countries.

To understand the advances, hotspots, trends and differences of primary care-related research at home and abroad during the COVID-19 epidemic, and to provide a reference for further research in this field.

Primary healthcare-related studies published during the COVID-19 pandemic (between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022) were searched in databases of CNKI and Web of Science Core Collection on July 5, 2022, and 282 from the former database and 1 755 from the latter were included. CiteSpace was used for visualization analysis to provide a graphic visualization of co-occurrence networks of authors, keywords and keywords clusters, to perform a timeline analysis, and to detect keywords with bursts.

The number of publications in China grew fast at the beginning of the pandemic, then the growth gradually decreased, and tended to level off at the late stage. In contrast, relevant research started later in foreign countries, but the number of relevant publications maintained high-speed growth as of the study time. The major author cooperation forms were inter-small teams cooperation and inter-individual cooperation, and no large-scale inter-team cooperation was found. The hotspots of domestic research focus on the systems, the exploration of mechanisms and management practices related to pandemic prevention and control, while international research focuses on changes in healthcare-seeking patterns and the satisfaction of patients' medical needs under the influence of the pandemic. Psychological problems related to the pandemic were concerned by both domestic and international research.

Domestic and foreign studies have similarities and different focuses. To continuous refine and diversify domestic research, it is suggested to learn international experience, pay attention to the construction of relevant research forces, improve the knowledge system in this field, and actively use information technology to improve the primary care system amid the pandemic.