Alternative medicines worth researching? Citation analyses of acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, and osteopathy 1996–2017

Abstract

Some complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are frequently criticised for being based on faith rather than scientific evidence. Despite this, researchers, academic departments, and institutes teach and investigate them. This article assesses whether the scholarship produced by four CAMs is valued by the academic community in terms of citations, and whether the level of citations received might be detrimental to academic authors' careers. Based on an analysis of acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, and osteopathy journal articles indexed in Scopus 1996-2020, the results show that the prevalence of the four areas vary substantially internationally, with acupuncture eclipsing the others in East Asia but homeopathy being more common in India and Brazil. The main broad fields publishing these specialties are Medicine, Nursing, Health Professions, Veterinary Science, and Neuroscience. Whilst the research tends to be cited at a below average rate in most broad fields (n = 27) and years , acupuncture, chiropractic, and homeopathy are exceptions in some broad fields, including some core areas. Thus, studying these alternative medicines may not always lead to research that tends to be ignored in academia, even if many scientists disparage it. As a corollary, citation analysis cannot be relied on to give low scores to widely disparaged areas of scholarship.

Bibliometric trend analysis of non-conventional (alternative) therapies in veterinary research

“…essential oils) at the detriment of placebo-based practices such as acupuncture (Colquhoun and Novella 2013 ; Magalhães-Sant’Ana 2019 ) or homeopathy (Lees et al., 2017 ). This also seems to contradict the claim made by Thelwall that there is substantial veterinary research interest in acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, and osteopathy (Thelwall 2021 ). The results also suggest that the reputation of these (arguably popular) veterinary NCTs is not sustained by published empirical evidence.…”

“…The terms “physical therapy”, “electrostimulation”, “cryotherapy” and “hydrotherapy” were discarded because these practices rely mostly on established (conventional) physiotherapic techniques (Millis and Levine 2014 ) that fall outside the definition of NCTs used in this research. The term “osteopathy” did not emerge from this initial search but was nonetheless included, due to strong evidence that veterinary osteopathy is being researched (Thelwall 2021 ) and practiced (Pusey et al. 2010 ).…”

Visualizing burst spots on research for four authors in MDPI journals named to be Citation Laureates 2021 using temporal bar graph

“…In tradition, trend analysis was directly performed by drawing the line-chart plots [26][27][28]34] rather than the TBG as a buffer or transition to highlighting the features of IP, burst spot, and the trend in recent time points. The EISTL Model to construct the TBG is meaningful and implacable more than the traditional trend analysis in bibliographical studies.…”