Abstract
Objectives: A bibliometric approach using network analysis was applied to identify the development and research trends for moxibustion. This study also examined the network hub of moxibustion research by investigating the collaborative work of organizations and authors. Methods: Academic articles on moxibustion research published from 2000 to 2019 were retrieved from the Web of Science database. Extracted records were analyzed according to publication year, research area, journal title, country, organization, and authors. The VOSviewer program was utilized to visualize the trends in moxibustion research and to explore the influential organizations and authors. Results: Analyses of 1146 original and review articles written in English demonstrated that the number of publications related to moxibustion research has increased consistently over the last 20 years. China issued the most articles in this field, and the most represented research area was integrative complementary medicine. A network analysis based on the co-occurrence and publication year of keywords identified the relevant characteristics and trends of moxibustion research. By assessing the total link strength of organizations and authors, influential organizations and authors who have contributed to moxibustion research were identified. Conclusions: The current study examined research on moxibustion using bibliometric analysis and identified a time-based development of moxibustion research and a global network hub of moxibustion research.
Highlights
Moxibustion, a typical therapeutic tool of traditional East Asian medicine, is one of the most widely used treatment methodologies in the current healthcare system of East Asia
Of the 61 research areas that were verified in the present study, the most highly represented research area as judged by the number of articles was integrative complementary medicine (58.6% of all articles), followed by general internal medicine (7.5%), neuroscience and neurology (6.2%), research experimental medicine (5.1%), and cell biology (3.8%; Table 2)
Our bibliometric analysis of moxibustion research published over the last two decades showed that the total number of articles per year has increased steadily during this period
Summary
Moxibustion, a typical therapeutic tool of traditional East Asian medicine, is one of the most widely used treatment methodologies in the current healthcare system of East Asia. Moxibustion has been used to prevent and treat diseases for more than 2500 years in traditional Chinese medicine [1], and 67% of Korean medical doctors were reported to use moxibustion alone or in combination with their standard clinical practices [2]. Several systemic reviews showed that clinical applications of moxibustion were useful as an adjunct to standard care during stroke rehabilitation [8], and demonstrated that moxibustion might be beneficial in the management of irritable bowel syndrome [9]. Basic research studies have investigated the underlying mechanisms of moxibustion on specific diseases such as primary dysmenorrhea [10] and post-inflammatory irritable bowel syndrome [11]. Considering the increasing number of published studies and the diversity of topics, a quantitative analysis of studies on moxibustion is needed to understand the current status of moxibustion research
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