Bibliometric analysis of traditional Chinese medicine for smoking cessation

Smoking cessation is an efficient approach to reducing disease burden. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, and herbal drugs are often used to help quit smoking. However, there is a lack of overarching bibliometric analysis of the clinical research on smoking cessation focusing on TCM. The aim of our study is to explore the current patterns and trends of TCM therapy for smoking cessation through bibliometric methods with visual presentation.

This study is an assessment of academic publications retrieved from the Scopus database on smoking cessation using TCM therapy published in the period 2005-2021. Sankey diagram, word-cloud, network analysis, thematic maps, tree-maps, and the collaborative work of authors, institutions and countries, were used to identify research trends on TCM therapy for smoking cessation. The total cited index and H-index (for journals, authors, countries, organizations) were used to identify the trends of worldwide development by R Package and Excel 2016.

There was an upward trend, with some fluctuations, of 1908 articles from 2005 to 2021. The most productive country was China. The top institution in this field was Beijing University. The dominant author that contributed to TCM therapy for smoking cessation was Wang Y, who has the highest H-Index. The most productive cited journals were Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicines and the Chinese Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation. Liu L, (2011, STROKE) had the highest centrality. The keywords 'acupuncture', 'traditional Chinese medicine', 'colitis', 'hypertension', 'chronic obstructive pulmonary disease', 'risk factors' and 'alternative medicine' ranked highest in frequency. The diseases of healthy people concerned mainly cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, hypertension and pregnancy. The diseases of the patients concerned mainly cancer, diabetes, hematopathy, stroke, cardiovascular, diabetes, lung disease, and hypertension. Treatment methods were mainly traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. The research methods mainly included randomized controlled trials that were multi-center and double-blind.

A substantial number of articles on TCM therapy for smoking cessation, mainly focusing on TCM and acupuncture were identified. It is worth noting that research that focused on TCM therapy for smoking cessation also was related to COVID-19.