Recent trends in Tuina for chronic pain management: A bibliometric analysis and literature review


Author: Hui Xu1, Zheng Wang2, Zhen Wang2, Yang Lei2, Juntao Chen2, Hang Zhou2, Mengmeng Li2, Jieyao Diao2, Yanqin Bian3, Bin Zhou4, Yunfeng Zhou5

Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China; Tuina Department, Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China.

<sup>2</sup> Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China.

<sup>3</sup> Orthopedic Research Laboratory, University of California, Davis 95616, USA.

<sup>4</sup> Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China; Tuina Department, Third Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China. Electronic address: 18603835129@163.com.

<sup>5</sup> Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China. Electronic address: zyf5680198@126.com.
Conference/Journal: Complement Ther Med
Date published: 2024 Jul 12
Other:
  Pages: 103068   ,  Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2024.103068.   ,  Word Count: 273  
    Background:

The utilization of Tuina as a therapeutic intervention for the management of chronic pain has experienced a gradually increase in its popularity, and the purpose of this bibliometric analysis is to offer a comprehensive understanding of the current state and frontier trends, as well as to provide recommendations for future research directions.



Methods:

Publications on Tuina for chronic pain published between 2004 and 2023 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Microsoft Excel, CiteSpace, VOSViewer, and the R package "bibliometrix" were used to quantitatively analyse the annual publication volume, countries/regions, journals, institutions, cited references, authors, and keywords.



Results:

A total of 287 publications were retrieved. The number of annual publications on the use of Tuina for treating chronic pain has gradually increased. Most publications were published in China and the United States. Notably, the most productive institution and author were identified as Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Min Fang, respectively. Medicine ranked first as the most influential affiliate and most productive journal. These publications came from 1,650 authors, among whom Edzard Ernst had the most co-citations. Keyword analysis revealed that the new research frontier was low back pain.



Conclusion:

The utilization of Tuina for the treatment of chronic pain has been gaining increasing recognition. Acupuncture, randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, etc. were the main research subjects. Furthermore, low back pain is the new research frontier. This study provides an in-depth perspective on Tuina for chronic pain, which provides valuable reference material for clinicians with insights of therapeutic strategy, educators with valuable topics, and researchers with new research directions.



Keywords: Tuina; bibliometric analysis; chronic pain; co-citation analysis.



PMID: 39004289 DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2024.103068