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. 2023 Nov 3:16:3673-3691.
doi: 10.2147/JPR.S422614. eCollection 2023.

Hotspots and Trends in Research on Treating Pain with Electroacupuncture: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis from 1994 to 2022

Liyu Hu  1 , Jikang Yang  1 , Ting Liu  1 , Jinhuan Zhang  1 , Xingxian Huang  1 , Haibo Yu  1
Affiliations

Hotspots and Trends in Research on Treating Pain with Electroacupuncture: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis from 1994 to 2022

Liyu Hu et al. J Pain Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: Electroacupuncture is widely used to pain management. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to identify the hotspots and trends in research on electroacupuncture for pain.

Methods: We retrieved studies published from 1994-2022 on the topic of pain relief by electroacupuncture from the Web of Science Core Collection database. We comprehensively analysed the data with VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and bibliometrix. Seven aspects of the data were analysed separately: annual publication outputs, countries, institutions, authors, journals, keywords and references.

Results: A total of 2030 papers were analysed, and the number of worldwide publications continuously increased over the period of interest. The most productive country and institution in this field were China and KyungHee University. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine was the most productive journal, and Pain was the most co-cited journal. Han Jisheng, Fang Jianqiao, and Lao Lixing were the most representative authors. Based on keywords and references, three active areas of research on EA for pain were mechanisms, randomized controlled trials, and perioperative applications. Three emerging trends were functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), systematic reviews, and knee osteoarthritis.

Conclusion: This study comprehensively analysed the research published over the past 28 years on electroacupuncture for pain treatment, using bibliometrics and science mapping analysis. This work presents the current status and landscape of the field and may serve as a valuable resource for researchers. Chronic pain, fMRI-based mechanistic research, and the perioperative application of electroacupuncture are among the likely foci of future research in this area.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometrics; blibliometrix; electroacupuncture; pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest in this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Annual publications from 1994 to 2022 and logical curve of scientific literature.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Countries’ annual cumulative publication counts. (b) Collaboration network of countries/regions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Institutional collaboration network visualization map generated by VOS viewer. (b) Institutional collaboration network visualization map generated by CiteSpace.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Co-authorship analyses of authors carried out with VOSviewer.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Dual-map of the overlay of journals.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Network map of co-citation of references.
Figure 7
Figure 7
(a) Strategic diagrams of EA for pain research (1994–2002). (b) Strategic diagrams of EA for pain research (2002–2022).
Figure 8
Figure 8
Co-occurrence network map of keywords.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This work was supported by Shenzhen’s Sanming Project (SZSM201612001).
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