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Review
. 2022 Dec 20;11(1):9.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare11010009.

Foot Reflexology: Recent Research Trends and Prospects

Deng-Chuan Cai  1 , Ching-Yun Chen  1 , Ting-Yun Lo  1
Affiliations
Review

Foot Reflexology: Recent Research Trends and Prospects

Deng-Chuan Cai et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

Foot reflexology is a non-invasive complementary therapy that is increasingly being accepted by modern people in recent years. To understand the research trends and prospects of foot reflexology in the past 31 years, this study used the Web of Science core collection as the data source and two visualization tools, COOC and VOSviewer, to analyze the literature related to the field of foot reflexology from 1991 to 2021. This study found that the number of articles published in the field of foot reflexology has been increasing year by year, and the top three journals with the most articles are Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, Therapies in Medicine, and the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. The top three most prolific authors are Wyatt, Sikorskii, and Victorson, and the core institutions in the field of foot reflexology are Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and the University of Exeter. Foot reflexology has been shown to have a moderating effect on anxiety, fatigue, and cancer, and is a topic of ongoing and future research. This study uses this bibliometric analysis of foot reflexology literature to provide an overview of prior knowledge and a reference direction for modern preventive medicine.

Keywords: VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; corporate online open course; foot reflexology; preventive medicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Foot reflexology chart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution and cumulative volume of foot reflexology papers published over the years.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Clusters of similar topics in foot reflexology studies in countries around the world (conditions are calculated with a keyword frequency ≥ 5 and a country frequency ≥ 10).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The top 15 countries for foot reflexology paper production.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Author rankings related to foot reflexology.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The collaborative network of prolific authors and research institutions in the field of foot reflexology research between 1991 and 2021.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Reflexology keyword cloud.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Reflexology keyword co-occurrence clustering graph.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Top 10 research areas for foot reflexology.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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