Application of CiteSpace Software in the Visualization Analysis of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders

Objective To investigate the visual application of the CiteSpace software in the field of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs).Methods The literature on WMSDs research, published from 1991 to 2017, was retrieved in Web of Science database. The CiteSpace 5.2 was used to make visualization analysis on the hotspots and tendency of the keywords, authors, countries (regions) and research institutes in relevant literature.Results A total of 3224 literatures were included in the analysis.The amount of the literatures published was increasing annually.The key word co-occurrence network showed that the research hotspots mainly focused on the study of epidemiology, risk factors, symptoms, and other aspects of WMSDs. The cooperation network and time network of counties and regions showed that America and Europe were at the leading position in the field of WMSD, and the top three were America, Canada and Sweden.The developing countries, like Brazil and China,had also begun to make relative research since 2000.In research cooperation, the collaboration among countries, research institutions was relatively close, and multiple leading core authors and teams were formed in the international arena. Conclusion The CiteSpace software can directly demonstrate the hotspots and tendency in the area of WMSDs.