Publication activity in complementary and alternative medicine

Abstract

In this article we analyse how research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) break through into one established scientific arena, namely academic journals. With help from bibliometric methods we analyse publication of CAM articles, in the Medline database, during the period 1966–2007. We also analyse the general content of the articles and in what journals they get published. We conclude that the publication activity of CAM articles increases rapidly, especially in the late 1990s, and that the changing growth rate is not due to the general expansion of Medline. The character of CAM articles has changed towards more clinical oriented research, especially in subfields such as acupuncture and musculoskeletal manipulations. CAM articles are found both in core clinical journals and in specialized CAM journals. Even though a substantial part of the articles are published in CAM journals, we conclude that the increasing publication activity is not restricted to the expansion of these specialized journals.