Bibliometric Analysis of Wearable Technology Studies in The Healtcare Industry

Abstract

In recent years, it has been observed that expectations from health services and investments in this field are primarily directed towards studies for the early detection of diseases, more effective monitoring of health conditions, and studies to increase the general quality of life and healthy lifestyle. This study aims to present a bibliometric analysis by examining wearable technology studies in medicine. For wearable technology studies in the medical field, analyzes were performed with 616 articles listed in the Scopus database. The VOSviewer software created an international cooperation network, co-citation author network, and common word network. According to the analysis results, it is seen that the publications are distributed between 1997-2022. The country that contributed the most to these 616 studies in the United States (USA), with 216 publications, followed by China and the United Kingdom. In addition, the USA ranks first among the cooperating countries with the highest connection strength and number of connections. The top contributing author is Najafi, B. Wang J. is the most cited author in the co-citation network author analysis. According to the results of the common word analysis, 5 clusters were formed, and after the most repeated words "wearable technologies" and "wearable technology" were removed, "physical activity" and "machine learning" respectively words. This study is an essential resource to present the current issues of wearable technology studies in the field of health and to examine research trends.