Department of Physical Therapy, Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Physiotherapy, Universidade da Coruña, Grupo de Investigación en Intervención Psicosocial y Rehabilitación Funcional, Campus de Oza, A Coruña, Spain.
Universidade da Coruña, Departamento de Matemáticas, Faculty of Physiotherapy, Campus de Oza, A Coruña, Spain.
Physiother Theory Pract. 2023 Nov 2;39(11):2407-2419. doi: 10.1080/09593985.2022.2073927. Epub 2022 May 19.
The objectives of the study were: 1) Describe the thematic structure and evolution of the field of physical therapy; 2) identify the main research producers (i.e. countries and institutions); and 3) compare their research output and citation impact.
Papers related to physical therapy indexed in Web of Science (2000-2018) were identified to delineate the field, using keywords, journals, and citation networks. VOSviewer software, advanced bibliometric text mining, and visualization techniques were used to evaluate the thematic structure. We collected data about the country and institutional affiliation of all the authors and calculated production and citation impact indicators.
85,697 papers were analyzed. Eleven thematic clusters were identified: 1) "health care and education"; 2) "biomechanics"; 3) "psychosocial, chronic pain and quality of life outcomes"; 4) "evidence-based physical therapy research methods"; 5) "traumatology and orthopedics"; 6) "neurological rehabilitation"; 7) "psychometrics and cross-cultural adaptation"; 8) "gait-balance analysis and Parkinson's disease"; 9) "exercise"; 10) "respiratory physical therapy"; and 11) "back pain." The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia were the most productive countries. Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden had the highest citation impact.
Our bibliometric visualization approach makes it possible to comprehensively study the thematic structure of physical therapy. The ranking of producers has evolved and now includes China and Brazil. High research production does not imply a high citation impact.
本研究的目的是：1）描述物理治疗领域的主题结构和演变；2）确定主要的研究生产者（即国家和机构）；3）比较它们的研究产出和引文影响力。
使用关键词、期刊和引文网络，从 Web of Science（2000-2018 年）中确定与物理治疗相关的论文，以描绘该领域。VOSviewer 软件、高级文献计量学文本挖掘和可视化技术用于评估主题结构。我们收集了所有作者的国家和机构隶属关系的数据，并计算了生产力和引文影响力指标。
分析了 85697 篇论文。确定了 11 个主题集群：1）“医疗保健和教育”；2）“生物力学”；3）“心理社会、慢性疼痛和生活质量结果”；4）“基于证据的物理治疗研究方法”；5）“创伤学和矫形学”；6）“神经康复”；7）“心理计量学和跨文化适应”；8）“步态平衡分析和帕金森病”；9）“运动”；10）“呼吸物理治疗”；11）“背痛”。美国、英国和澳大利亚是最具生产力的国家。荷兰、挪威和瑞典的引文影响力最高。
我们的文献计量可视化方法使全面研究物理治疗的主题结构成为可能。生产者的排名已经发生了变化，现在包括中国和巴西。高研究产出并不意味着高引文影响力。
