Publications in Integrative and Complementary Medicine: A Ten‐Year Bibliometric Survey in the Field of ICM

Abstract

Background. This article aims to analyze the research status of integrative complementary medicine (ICM) and features of highly cited papers in the field to provide reference of the future development of ICM. Methods. Publications in the field of ICM from 2009 to 2018 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. The top 20 countries/territories, institutions, journals, keywords of highly cited and noncited papers, and characteristics of essential science indicator (ESI) papers, as well as open access (OA) and non-OA papers, were analyzed. Results. Mainland China had the largest number of ICM publications. The top 20 journals published a total of 31667 papers in 2009–2018, which represented 92.9% of all publications. Keywords of highly cited and noncited papers point to different research directions. 48 ESI highly cited/hot papers were identified, most of which are related to phytochemistry. Furthermore, the average citation rate (percentage of publications that have been cited one or more times) of OA papers was lower than that of total papers and non-OA papers. Conclusions. China leads in number of publications; however, publication quality in ICM field requires improvement. A few journals accounted for more than half of number of publications and citations, which are important for the development of ICM. Many of the keywords in ICM noncited publications pointed towards broad meaning that poorly reflect the exact research content. Most highly cited ICM studies focused on the identification and evaluation of plant active components. OA may not be an effective approach to increase paper citations in the field of ICM.

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

“…The international differences in prevalence of research are unsurprising given the (partially) known international differences in interest in them (WHO, 2019) and the bibliometric studies cited above (mainly for acupuncture) suggesting the dominance of Mainland China, the USA and, to a lesser extent, the UK and Germany (e.g., Ding & Li, 2020;Şenel, 2019;Yang et al, 2019). The results here give finer-grained and updated information, including comparisons between four CAMs.…”

“…For research, academics might be interested in testing whether treatments work, investigating the safety of products or use practices, discovering related belief systems in populations, and assessing whether beliefs in alternative medicines undermine willingness to accept modern medicine. Although increasingly many CAM academic studies are being published (Bougioukas et al, 2021;Danell et al, 2020;Treister-Goltzman & Peleg, 2015), and particularly in Mainland China (Ding & Li, 2020) and in the USA for some topics (e.g., cancer) (Yang et al, 2019), scholars with a CAM career focus or occasionally engaging with it may worry that their work will not be valued. Similarly, academic institutions may be concerned that some or all CAM research will be disparaged by the wider academic community and will undermine their reputations.…”

Molecular modeling and in vitro studies of gedunin a potent alpha‐amylase inhibitor and alpha‐glucosidase inhibitor

“…I.C.M. molsoft software came into place for docking studies of alpha‐amylase and alpha‐glucosidase 15 …”

“…molsoft software came into place for docking studies of alpha-amylase and alphaglucosidase. 15 Docking using MolsoftI.C.M. 3.4-8C program was achieved by converting the enzyme pdb file into an I.C.M.…”

Redes, atores e agenciamentos na constituição da Política de Práticas Integrativas e Complementares no Brasil

“…Além da significativa oferta de PICs no sistema público de saúde e do aumento na quantidade de PICs reconhecidas, atualmente, também se destaca o interesse da academia pelo tema, sendo o Brasil o 5º país que mais desenvolveu pesquisas sobre "medicina integrativa e complementar" no período entre 2009 e 2018 7 .…”