The State of Music Therapy Studies in the Past 20 Years: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Purpose: Music therapy is increasingly being used to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. However, publications on the global trends of music therapy using bibliometric analysis are rare. The study aimed to use the CiteSpace software to provide global scientific research about music therapy from 2000 to 2019.Methods: Publications between 2000 and 2019 related to music therapy were searched from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The CiteSpace V software was used to perform co-citation analysis about authors, and visualize the collaborations between countries or regions into a network map. Linear regression was applied to analyze the overall publication trend.Results: In this study, a total of 1,004 studies met the inclusion criteria. These works were written by 2,531 authors from 1,219 institutions. The results revealed that music therapy publications had significant growth over time because the linear regression results revealed that the percentages had a notable increase from 2000 to 2019 (t = 14.621, P < 0.001). The United States had the largest number of published studies (362 publications), along with the following outputs: citations on WoS (5,752), citations per study (15.89), and a high H-index value (37). The three keywords “efficacy,” “health,” and “older adults,” emphasized the research trends in terms of the strongest citation bursts.Conclusions: The overall trend in music therapy is positive. The findings provide useful information for music therapy researchers to identify new directions related to collaborators, popular issues, and research frontiers. The development prospects of music therapy could be expected, and future scholars could pay attention to the clinical significance of music therapy to improve the quality of life of people.

Trends in Research on Art Therapy Indexed in the Web of Science: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…In the case of Frontiers in Psychology, although it is not specific to this area of research, it does belong to the field of psychology, one of the two domains identified in the present study as being main domains. This result is also similar to that of Li et al (2021), mentioned above, where the authors found that the leading journals in the field were specialized in music therapy and where one of the main domains was also psychology.…”

“…Regarding the geographical distribution of the publications, the results of the study are equivalent to those of a bibliometric study that analyzed the last 20 years of publications on music therapy (Li et al, 2021) since the 10 countries or regions that these authors identified as the main ones are among the twenty top producing countries in art therapy, with the United States heading the list in both cases. The aim of this study was to determine whether the improvement in depression, anxiety, or fatigue during chemotherapy after an anthroposophic art therapy intervention was sufficient to warrant a controlled trial.…”

Bibliometric Analysis of Studies on Neuropathic Pain Associated With Depression or Anxiety Published From 2000 to 2020

“…By the end of 2020, the top keywords were “postherpetic neuralgia” (2002–2009), “gabapentin” (2005–2012), and “double-blind” (2004–2011). The research frontiers can be indicated by an in-depth analysis of these keywords (Li et al, 2021 ).…”

“…By the end of 2020, the top keywords were ''postherpetic neuralgia '' (2002-2009), ''gabapentin '' (2005-2012), and ''double-blind'' (2004-2011). The research frontiers can be indicated by an in-depth analysis of these keywords (Li et al, 2021). a. Postherpetic neuralgia: Postherpetic neuralgia is a type of NP that is common among older patients after the rash of singles disappears (Pei et al, 2019b).…”

“…Then, one bibliometric study analyzed the development of Alzheimer’s disease to examine China’s contribution in the field from 1988 to 2017 (Liu et al, 2019 ). In the non-pharmacological field, one study used the bibliometric method to analyze global publications about music therapy in the recent 20 years (Li et al, 2021 ). However, research on NP associated with depression or anxiety is limited.…”