The rise of global research trends on cathinones during 1994-2018: lessons from a systematic bibliometric analysis

ABSTRACT

Background

Cathinones have emerged as a worldwide health concern due to their increasing use.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to perform a bibliometric review of global research trends in psychoactive cathinones as illegal addictive substances.

Methods

We developed a search strategy and established several databases based on Web of Science (WoS) screening. After screening, 944 scientific papers from 1994 to 2018 (including 99 in the substance-abuse category) were used for scientometric analysis regarding various indicators, including outputs trends, institution/country/territory contributions, and high-frequency terms.

Results

Analyses indicated that annual publications increased dramatically after 2011, then showed fluctuating increases. Institutions in developed countries, especially the United States and European countries, demonstrated high contribution to outstanding papers and top-cited publications. High-frequency terms, which are indicative of widely covered research topics, included pharmacological effects, chemical analysis, clinical neurology, as well as toxicity, psychology, and behavior.

Conclusions

This bibliometric analysis revealed the emerging trends in research interest on cathinones, especially designer drug synthesis. Therefore, regulations should be updated to set clear boundaries related to potential medical and illegal use. With joint academic and societal effort, research strategies and prevention policies related to these illegal stimulants could be improved.

KEYWORDS:

• Novel psychoactive substances
• cathinones
• use
• bibliometric analysis

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 81501632] and “Key Laboratory of Forensic Toxicology, Ministry of Public Security, People’s Republic of China (Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau)” [Grant No. 2019FTDWFX06].