Research Progress of Physiotherapy on Female Stress Urinary Incontinence: A Bibliometric Analysis

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is characterized by the involuntary leakage of urine on physical activities or sneezing or coughing. Despite a considerable number of studies on physiotherapy for female SUI have been published, a bibliometric analysis that comprehensively quantifies and summarizes these studies is still lacking. Thus, the aim of this study is to summarize the current state of this area based on bibliometrics and to suggest future research trends.

We searched literature in the Web of Science database from the inception to 11 August 2024 and extracted the information of countries, institutions, authors, journals, references and keywords. CiteSpace v 6.2.4, VOSviewer v 1.6.19, and Origin 2024 were used for analysis and visualization.

A total of 447 papers, published between 1986 and 2024, were included. The annual publication number has increased on average. The United States ranked first in the publication numbers, but the New Zealand had the highest average article citations. The University of Otago and the International Urogynecology Journal published the highest number of literature. The author of Bo, K ranked first in terms of scientific productions. While, the paper with the highest citation numbers was published by Dumoulin, C (2018). The keywords "stress urinary incontinence," "women," and "pelvic floor muscle training" ranked in the top three on occurrence frequency. In trend topics analysis, the frontier topics may be identified as "sexual function," "laser therapy," and "internet-based treatment."

This bibliometric analysis highlights the increasing research output on female SUI. Key research areas include pelvic floor muscle training, while emerging trends such as sexual function, laser therapy, and interest-based treatments suggest the need for future studies to explore innovative and patient-centered approaches to female SUI management.