Knowledge Mapping Analysis of International Research on Acupuncture for Low Back Pain Using Bibliometrics

Haotian Pan; Ziqi Xi; Xintong Yu; Xuqiu Sun; Xuqiang Wei; Ke Wang

doi:10.2147/JPR.S340992

Knowledge Mapping Analysis of International Research on Acupuncture for Low Back Pain Using Bibliometrics

J Pain Res. 2021 Dec 7:14:3733-3746. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S340992. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Haotian Pan¹, Ziqi Xi¹, Xintong Yu¹, Xuqiu Sun², Xuqiang Wei¹, Ke Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Acupuncture Anesthesia Clinical Research Institute, Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
² Office of National Clinical Research Base of TCM, Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Objective: Acupuncture has made recommendations to relieve low back pain (LBP) in a few guidelines. However, few articles focused on the papers published before, which may reflect the trend of study, main researchers, reciprocal collaboration, and other information in this field. In this study, we utilize the bibliometric analysis methods to objectively analyze the current trend and research hotspots about this field, aiming to provide a foundation and reference for future study.

Methods: The Web of Science database was searched for publications related to acupuncture therapy for treating low back pain between 1985 and 2021. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to analyze the annual publication, authors and co-cited authors and their countries (regions) and institutions, journals and co-cited journals, co-cited references, co-occurrence keywords, burst keywords, and the relevant centrality.

Results: A total of 1279 papers were retrieved from the database, and the trend of annual publications maintained growth. Article was the most document type (867). The USA (451) and the Kyung Hee University (49) were the most productive country (region) and institution, respectively, while the USA (0.37) and University of Maryland (0.13) had the highest centrality. MacPherson, Hugh and Sherman, Karen J. published the most papers in this field (32), and Ernst, Edzard became the most influential author (474 co-citations). Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine was the most productive journal (79), whereas SPINE was the most influential one (3111 co-citations). Haake's (2007) article had the most co-citation count (186), while Furlan's (2005) article had the highest centrality (0.23). The three frontier topics were pain management, disease, and protocol.

Conclusion: The present study investigated publications on acupuncture for treating low back pain using bibliometric analysis methods, which may help researchers explore the potential directions for the future.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; acupuncture; bibliometric analysis; low back pain.

Grants and funding

The project was funded by the National Natural Science Fund of China (81973940), Accelerating the Development of Chinese Medicine Three-Year Action Plan of Shanghai (No. ZY (2018-2020)-CCCX-2004-04), Clinical Key Specialty Construction Foundation of Shanghai (No. shslczdzk04701), and Shanghai Clinical Research Center for Acupuncture and Moxibustion (20MC1920500).