Bibliometric trend analysis of non-conventional (alternative) therapies in veterinary research.

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> There is an increased interest in Non-Conventional Therapies (NCTs), often referred to as complementary and alternative medicines, in veterinary clinical practice.<b>Aim:</b> To map the bibliometric outputs of NCTs in veterinary medicine, and identify which are most prevalent, and the extent to which their publishing has increased.<b>Methods:</b> Text mining algorithms were applied to detect 17 NCTs-related terms (<i>acupuncture</i>, <i>ayurveda/ayurvedic</i>, <i>traditional Chinese medicine</i>, <i>traditional medicine, chiropractic</i>, <i>electroacupuncture</i>, <i>essential oil</i>, <i>plant extract, ethnopharmacology</i>, <i>herbal medicine</i>, <i>homeopathy</i>, <i>low-level laser therapy</i>, <i>medicinal plant, natural product</i>, <i>osteopathy</i>, <i>phytotherapy</i>, and <i>massage</i>) in the title, abstract or keywords of all retrievable literature until 2020 under the PubMed MeSH term 'veterinary' (<i>N</i> = 377 556). Point prevalence, incidence by decade and cumulative incidence were calculated.<b>Results:</b> Bibliometric trend analysis revealed an overall increase in NCTs-related terms over the last 20 years, with a substantial growth of studies mentioning <i>plant extracts</i>, <i>essential oils</i> and <i>medicinal plants. Traditional Chinese medicine</i>, <i>herbal medicine</i> and <i>natural product</i> have also increased in the same period, although their numbers remain low. Conversely, reference to <i>acupuncture</i> has decreased in the last decade when compared with the previous decade, whereas references to <i>homeopathy</i>, <i>electroacupuncture</i>, <i>osteopathy</i> and <i>chiropractic</i> remained scarce, suggesting that their use in veterinary clinical practice may not be based on published evidence.<b>Conclusion:</b> Further reviews to explore this issue are warranted, differentiating secondary from primary literature, and assessing relevance and methodological quality of individual studies, following the principles of evidence-based veterinary medicine.