Hitit University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Dermatology and Venerology, Çorum, Turkey; Hitit University, Traditional and Complementary Medicine Application and Research Center, Çorum, Turkey; Hitit University, Beekeeping and Bee Products Application and Research Center, Çorum, Turkey.
Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2019 Feb;34:165-173. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2018.11.018. Epub 2018 Dec 1.
Scientometrics is the evaluation of scientific literature in a certain field. Although popularity and use of homeopathy have increased in the recent years, scientific literature lacks a bibliometric or scientometric evaluation of homeopathy literature.
We collected all data of this study from four databases provided by Web of Science. All documents published between 1975 and 2017 were included. The keywords we searched for in detail were "homeopathy", "homeopathic", "homoeopathy" and "homoeopathic". We used Spearman's correlation test to investigate a possible correlation between publication numbers or the productivity and features of the countries. We created infographics and infomaps by using GunnMap and VOSviewer sources. Gross domestic product (GDP) ranking data of countries was procured from The World Data Bank.
Our search retrieved a total of 4183 articles. The great majority of documents were original articles (n = 3043, 72.75%). The UK dominated homeopathy literature with 950 articles followed by the USA, Germany, India and Brazil (n = 636, 590, 277 and 246 items, respectively). Switzerland was found to be most productive country (20.41) followed by the UK, Norway and Israel (14.35, 11.31 and 8.41, respectively). University of Exeter (UK) was the leading institutions with 204 items (4.88%). Most productive journal was Homeopathy dominating and covering 24% of all literature. We detected very high correlation between publication number and citation number by year (r = 0.95, p < 0.001). A high correlation was measured between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and productivity of the countries. A moderate correlation was measured between GDP and publication number of the countries (r = 0.66 and p < 0.001). In scientometric network analysis, the USA, the UK and Germany were noted to be three major association centers.
We detected that developed countries dominated homeopathy literature and we suggest that physicians from least-developed and developing countries should be funded and encouraged to carry out homeopathy studies.
科学计量学是对特定领域科学文献的评价。尽管顺势疗法近年来的普及度和使用率有所提高，但科学文献中缺乏对顺势疗法文献的文献计量学或科学计量学评估。
我们从 Web of Science 提供的四个数据库中收集了本研究的所有数据。纳入的所有文献均发表于 1975 年至 2017 年期间，关键词为“顺势疗法”、“顺势医学”、“同种疗法”和“同种治疗学”。我们使用 Spearman 相关系数检验来研究发表数量或各国特征与生产力之间的可能相关性。我们使用 GunnMap 和 VOSviewer 资源创建了信息图表和信息地图。各国的国内生产总值（GDP）排名数据来自世界数据银行。
我们的搜索共检索到 4183 篇文章。绝大多数文献是原始文章（n=3043，72.75%）。英国以 950 篇文章主导顺势疗法文献，其次是美国、德国、印度和巴西（n=636、590、277 和 246 篇）。瑞士被认为是最具生产力的国家（20.41），其次是英国、挪威和以色列（14.35、11.31 和 8.41）。埃克塞特大学（英国）以 204 篇文章（4.88%）位居首位。最具生产力的期刊是 Homeopathy，占所有文献的 24%。我们发现发表数量和引文数量与年份之间存在高度相关性（r=0.95，p<0.001）。各国的人均国内生产总值（GDP）与生产力之间存在高度相关性。各国的 GDP 与发表数量之间存在中度相关性（r=0.66，p<0.001）。在科学计量学网络分析中，美国、英国和德国被认为是三个主要的关联中心。
我们发现发达国家主导了顺势疗法文献，我们建议应资助和鼓励最不发达国家和发展中国家的医生开展顺势疗法研究。
