Recent trends in acupuncture for chronic pain: A bibliometric analysis and review of the literature

Background: Acupuncture has been increasingly used in patients with chronic pain, yet no bibliometric analysis of acupuncture studies for chronic pain exists.Objectives: To investigate the characteristics, hotspots and frontiers of global scientific output in acupuncture research for chronic pain over the past decade.Methods: We retrieved publications on acupuncture for chronic pain published from 2011 to 2022 from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-expanded) of the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). The cooccurrence relationships of journals/countries/institutions/authors/keywords were performed using VOSviewer V6.1.2, and CiteSpace V1.6.18 analyzed the clustering and burst analysis of keywords and co-cited references. Results: A total of 1616 articles were retrieved. The results showed that the number of annual publications on acupuncture for chronic pain has increased over time, with the main types of literature being original articles (1091 articles, 67.5 %) and review articles (351 articles, 21.7 %). China had the most publications (598 articles, 37 %), with Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (93 articles, 5.8 %) and Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine ranked first (169 articles, 10.45 %) as the most prolific affiliate and journal, respectively. Liang FR was the most productive author (43 articles), and the article published by Vickers Andrew J in 2012 had the highest number of citations (625 citations). Recently, acupuncture and pain appeared most frequently. The hot topics in acupuncture for chronic pain based on keywords clustering analysis were experimental design, hot diseases, interventions, and mechanism studies. According to burst analysis, the main research frontiers were functional connectivity (FC), depression, and risk. Conclusion: This study provides an in-depth perspective on acupuncture for chronic pain studies, revealing pivotal points, research hotspots, and research trends. Valuable ideas are provided for future research activities.

Automated summary

This study conducted a bibliometric analysis to investigate the characteristics, hotspots, and frontiers of acupuncture research for chronic pain over the past decade. The results showed an increasing number of publications on acupuncture for chronic pain, with China producing the most research output. Key topics and research hotspots in acupuncture for chronic pain were identified. This study provides valuable insights for future research in this area.