Study of acupuncture for low back pain in recent 20 years: a bibliometric analysis via CiteSpace

Abstract

Background

Acupuncture has been applied to relieve low back pain (LBP) in many countries. However, a bibliometric analysis of the global use of acupuncture for LBP is rare.

Objective

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the state of the art and trends concerning the global use of acupuncture for LBP in recent 20 years.

Methods

Literature relating to acupuncture for LBP from 1997 to 2016 was retrieved from Web of Science. CiteSpace was used to analyze country/institution, cited journals, authors/cited authors, cited references, and keywords. An analysis of counts and centrality was used to reveal publication outputs, countries/institutions, core journals, active authors, foundation references, hot topics, and frontiers.

Results

A total of 958 references were obtained, and the total number of publications continually increased over the investigated period. Journal articles (662) were the most frequently occurring document type. The most productive country and institution in this field was the USA (342) and Harvard University (47), respectively. The J Altern Complem Med (69) was the most productive journal, and Pain (636) was the most cocited journal, which reflected the nature of the research. The Haake’s (2007) article (cocitation counts: 130) and the Cherkin’s (2001) article (centrality: 0.59) were the most representative and symbolic references, with the highest cocitation number and centrality, respectively. Cherkin was the most influential author, with the highest number of publications of 25 and a cocitation number of 226. The four hot topics in acupuncture for LBP were research method, evaluation, economy, and comprehensive therapy. The three frontier topics were intervention, test reliability, and prevalence.

Conclusion

This study provides an insight into acupuncture for LBP and valuable information for acupuncture researchers to identify new perspectives on potential collaborators and cooperative institutions, hot topics, and research frontiers.

Keywords:

• acupuncture
• low back pain
• bibliometric analysis
• CiteSpace
• cocitation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Professor CM Chen, who invented CiteSpace, which is free to use. This study was supported by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology Project (2012A032500014). Yu-Dan Liang and Ying Li are the cofirst authors.

Author contributions

YDL and YL collected the literature and wrote the article. JZ, XW, and HZ revised the article. YDL and XC designed the study and revised the article. All authors have read and approved the final article. All authors contributed toward data analysis, drafting and critically revising the paper and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.