Bibliometric analysis for the literature of traditional Chinese medicine in PubMed

Implementation science in traditional, complementary and integrative medicine: An overview of experiences from China and the United States

BACKGROUND

The introduction of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) services into health systems has been advocated by the World Health Organization, but there is a paucity of reviews synthesising the experiences of (i) implementing TCIM services in conventional healthcare settings and (ii) introducing evidence-based practice in TCIM. Knowledge of the first issue will assist policymakers to innovate implementation interventions in their own health system contexts. Addressing the second issue will facilitate the closure of the evidence-practice gap in TCIM and improve the translation of research evidence into health outcome benefits.

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to identify, describe and analyse publications on these two key TCIM policy issues via an overview from an implementation science perspective.

METHODS

Publications describing international experiences of implementing TCIM services or evidence for TCIM practices were identified by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE and Global Health databases in November 2021. The findings were summarised using a narrative synthesis approach.

RESULTS

Sixty-three relevant publications were included in the analysis. Current experiences in China and the United Sates (US) reflect varying policy priorities at different stages of implementing TCIM services. In the US, where TCIM have yet to be introduced into mainstream healthcare settings, implementation interventions were designed to facilitate the provision of specific, evidence-based TCIM modalities via referrals from conventional clinicians. The application of these strategies at the health system, regulatory, financial, community, provider and patient levels provided a comprehensive picture of how TCIM implementation may be facilitated via multi-level interventions. In China, the major form of TCIM is traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), for which service provision has already been adopted at all levels of healthcare. With the high volume of clinical research that has been generated in the past several decades, a key policy question at this stage is how to translate TCM-related clinical evidence into practice. The development of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) is the main implementation intervention, but adherence by TCM clinicians has been poor, due to the conflict between classical individualised practice and CPG standardisation. While tailoring interventions to facilitate CPG uptake is indicated, concurrent innovations in TCM clinical research methods would improve the compatibility between classical and CPG-based practice.

CONCLUSION

Policymakers managing different stages of TCIM implementation will benefit from the experiences of practitioners in the US and China. Multi-level implementation interventions launched in the US provide ideas for the initial introduction of TCIM into a conventional medicine-dominated health system. As TCIM service provision and related clinical research become more common, China's experience will inform how clinical evidence related to TCIM may be disseminated and implemented to improve service quality.

Insight into the characteristics of research published in traditional, complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine journals: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND

Traditional, complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (TCAIM) can be described as diverse medical and healthcare interventions, practices, products, or disciplines that are not considered as part of conventional medicine. Inherent in its definition, TCAIMs are comprised of a wide variety of therapies with highly variable safety and effectiveness evidence profiles. Despite this, the use of many TCAIMs is highly prevalent among patients globally. The present study consists of a bibliometric analysis of TCAIM journals.

METHODS

A single search of all International Standard Serial Number (ISSNs) of all journals categorized as "complementary and alternative medicine" (code 2707) based on the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) was run on Scopus on April 17, 2021. All publication types were included; no further search limits were applied. The following bibliometric data were collected: number of publications (in total and per year), authors and journals; open access status; journals publishing the highest volume of literature and their impact factors; language, countries, institutional affiliations, and funding sponsors of publications; most productive authors; and highest-cited publications. Trends associated with this subset of publications were identified and presented. Bibliometric indicators of production were calculated, and bibliometric networks were constructed and visualized using the software tool VOSviewer.

RESULTS

A total of 172,466 publications (42,331 open access), were published by 219,680 authors in 143 journals from 1938 to 2021. Since the 1940s, an upward trend with respect to the volume of publications can be observed, with a steep increase observed between the mid-2000s and mid-2010s. The journal that published the largest number of publications was the Journal of Natural Products (n = 15,144). The most productive countries included China (n = 45,860), the United States (n = 29,523), and Germany (n = 10,120); a number of the most common institutional affiliations and funding sponsors also originated from these three countries.

CONCLUSIONS

The number of publications collectively published in TCAIM journals follows an upward trend. Given a high prevalence of TCAIM use among patients, increased acceptance of TCAIM among conventional healthcare providers, and growing interest in the research of TCAIM, future work should continue to investigate and track changes in the publication characteristics of the emerging research on this topic.

Publications in Integrative and Complementary Medicine: A Ten-Year Bibliometric Survey in the Field of ICM

Background

This article aims to analyze the research status of integrative complementary medicine (ICM) and features of highly cited papers in the field to provide reference of the future development of ICM.

Methods

Publications in the field of ICM from 2009 to 2018 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. The top 20 countries/territories, institutions, journals, keywords of highly cited and noncited papers, and characteristics of essential science indicator (ESI) papers, as well as open access (OA) and non-OA papers, were analyzed.

Results

Mainland China had the largest number of ICM publications. The top 20 journals published a total of 31667 papers in 2009–2018, which represented 92.9% of all publications. Keywords of highly cited and noncited papers point to different research directions. 48 ESI highly cited/hot papers were identified, most of which are related to phytochemistry. Furthermore, the average citation rate (percentage of publications that have been cited one or more times) of OA papers was lower than that of total papers and non-OA papers.

Conclusions

China leads in number of publications; however, publication quality in ICM field requires improvement. A few journals accounted for more than half of number of publications and citations, which are important for the development of ICM. Many of the keywords in ICM noncited publications pointed towards broad meaning that poorly reflect the exact research content. Most highly cited ICM studies focused on the identification and evaluation of plant active components. OA may not be an effective approach to increase paper citations in the field of ICM.

Production Trends, Collaboration, and Main Topics of the Integrative and Complementary Oncology Research Area: A Bibliometric Analysis

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of cancer has increased over time worldwide. Nevertheless, the number of deaths has been reduced during the past 2 decades. Thus, one-third of the cancer patients are users of complementary and alternative therapies, looking for other types of interventions. The main aim of the present study is to understand the current status of the research in integrative and complementary oncology. Three different aspects were analyzed: production trends, country collaboration, and leading research topics.

METHODS

The dataset was obtained from the documents indexed under the Integrative and Complementary Medicine category of the Web of Science database from 1976 to 2017. VOSviewer and SciMAT software were employed to perform the bibliometric analysis.

RESULTS

The Journal of Ethnopharmacology, China Medical University and the People's Republic of China are the leading producers in the field. Regarding the collaboration, the United States and China present a close connection. The scientific community is focused on the following topics: apoptosis, breast cancer, oxidative stress, chemotherapy, and nuclear factor-Kappa-B (NF-Kappa-B).

CONCLUSIONS

The present article shows potentially important information that allows understanding of the past, present, and future of research in integrative and complementary oncology. It is a useful evidence-based framework on which to base future research actions and academic directions.

Thematic Trends in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Applied in Cancer-Related Symptoms

Purpose

The main goal of this study is to discover the scientific evolution of Cancer-Related Symptoms in Complementary and Alternative Medicine research area, analyzing the articles indexed in the Web of Science database from 1980 to 2013.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A co-word science mapping analysis is performed under a longitudinal framework (1980 to 2013). The documental corpus is divided into two subperiods, 1980–2008 and 2009–2013. Thus, the performance and impact rates, and conceptual evolution of the research field are shown.

Findings

According to the results, the co-word analysis allows us to identify 12 main thematic areas in this emerging research field: anxiety, survivors and palliative care, meditation, treatment, symptoms and cancer types, postmenopause, cancer pain, low back pain, herbal medicine, children, depression and insomnia, inflammation mediators, and lymphedema. The different research lines are identified according to the main thematic areas, centered fundamentally on anxiety and suffering prevention. The scientific community can use this information to identify where the interest is focused and make decisions in different ways.

Research limitation

Several limitations can be addressed: 1) some of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine therapies may not have been included; 2) only the documents indexed in Web of Science are analyzed; and 3) the thematic areas detected could change if another dataset was considered.

Practical implications

The results obtained in the present study could be considered as an evidence-based framework in which future studies could be built.

Originality/value

Currently, there are no studies that show the thematic evolution of this research area.

Bibliometric Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medicine Scientific Production between 1982 and 2016 Indexed in PubMed

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may be understood as a system of sensations and findings designed to establish the functional vegetative state of the body. This state may be treated by several therapeutic methods such as acupuncture, Chinese pharmacotherapy, dietetics, Tuina, and Qigong. Nowadays, as a result of several evidence-based reported beneficial effects over specific pathological conditions, there is an increasing tendency to integrate some of these practices in Western medicine. The main goal of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of TCM scientific production between 1982 and 2016 indexed in PubMed, by analyzing several parameters including time and location distribution, publication quality, experimental design, and treatment methods. Methods: The methodology was based on the quantitative inventory of published scientific research indexed in PubMed medical subject headings (MeSH), sorted within the broad term “Traditional Chinese Medicine” and integrating the following criteria as limit filters: “Species: Humans”, “Article Type: Clinical Trial”. In addition, the articles’ triage was ruled by temporal limitations set between 1945 and 2016. Results: The overall analysis of data allowed observation of an average annual growth of approximately 33%, with a productive peak of 122 articles in 2007. The scientific production was distributed in 27 countries, led by China (76.1%), followed by the United States of America (3.0%) and South Korea (2.1%). A significant amount of references were published in Chinese journals: more than 50%; however, these journals had a low impact factor. The most cited treatments in the keywords section of the articles were phytotherapy (55%) and acupuncture (40%). Conclusion: The increasing demand for TCM seems to be due to factors such as lower side effects and greater efficacy in some patients not responding well to conventional therapy. As a result, a considerable amount of TCM science-based literature has been produced, supporting the rational integration of these practices in Western healthcare systems and research. Our results show that the quality of TCM research and inherent publications have been increasing over the last decades, with a higher incidence of studies published in well-ranked journals.