Research hotspots and trends of complementary and alternative therapy for neuropathic pain: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: Neuropathic pain (NP) is a common type of pain in clinic. Due to the limited effect of drug treatment, many patients with NP are still troubled by this disease. In recent years, complementary and alternative therapy (CAT) has shown good efficacy in the treatment of NP. As the interest in CAT for NP continues to grow, we conducted a bibliometric study of publications on CAT treatment for NP. The aim of this study is to analyze the development overview, research hotspots and future trends in the field of CAT and NP through bibliometric methodology, so as to provide a reference for subsequent researchers.

Methods: Publications on CAT in the treatment of NP from 2002 to 2022 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Relevant countries, institutions, authors, journals, keywords, and references were analyzed bibliometrically using Microsoft Excel 2021, bibliometric platform, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace.

Results: A total of 898 articles from 46 countries were published in 324 journals, and they were contributed by 4455 authors from 1102 institutions. The most influential country and institution are China (n = 445) and Kyung Hee University (n = 63), respectively. Fang JQ (n = 27) and Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (n = 63) are the author and journal with the most publications in this field. The clinical efficacy, molecular biological mechanisms and safety of CAT for NP are currently hot directions. Low back pain, postherpetic neuralgia, acupuncture, and herbal are the hot topics in CAT and NP in recent years.

Conclusion: This study reveals the current status and hotspots of CAT for NP. The study also indicates that the effectiveness and effect mechanism of acupuncture or herbs for treating emotional problems caused by low back pain or postherpetic neuralgia may be a trend for future research.

Figure 1.

Flowchart of the literature search.

Figure 2.

Publications and citations. Annual output and annual citations of publications.

Figure 3.

Countries and Institutions. (A) Geo-visualization map of country cooperation. (B) Statistics on the number of articles published by country from 2002 to 2022. (C) Overlay map of main institutions in co-authorship. The node size represents the number of publications by institutions, the lines between nodes represent the cooperative relationship between institutions, and the color represents the average publication time of articles from this institution.

Figure 4.

Authors and co-cited authors. (A) Network visualization of authors. The node sizes represent the number of publications by the authors, and the connecting lines between the nodes represent the cooperation between the authors. (B) Network visualization co-cited authors. The node size represents the authors’ citation frequency, and the connecting line between the nodes represents the co-citation relationship between the authors.

Figure 5.

Network visualization of journals co-citation. Larger nodes indicate that the journal is cited more frequently.

Figure 6.

Dual-map overlay of journal. Citing journals on the left, cited journals on the right, and connecting lines indicate citation paths between journals. The vertical axis of the ellipse in the figure is positively correlated with the number of journal publications and the horizontal axis is positively correlated with the number of authors.

Figure 7.

Keywords. (A) Keywords density visualization. Colors ranging from blue to green to yellow to red indicate a gradual increase in study density. (B) Keywords co-occurrence map. Node size said keyword frequency, color represents year, line between nodes associated with centrality. (C) Keywords cluster map. Each color represents a cluster. (D) The map of keywords timeline.

Figure 8.

Top 25 keywords with the strongest burst values. The blue line indicates the duration during which the keyword appeared and persisted in the field of CAT and NP, and the red line is the time period during which the keyword exploded. CAT = complementary and alternative therapy, NP = neuropathic pain.

Figure 9.

Visualization of co-cited references on CAT for NP. CAT = complementary and alternative therapy, NP = neuropathic pain.

Figure 10.

References. (A) Cluster plots of references on CAT for NP. (B) References with the strongest burst values. CAT = complementary and alternative therapy, NP = neuropathic pain.