Tai Chi for health and well-being: A bibliometric analysis of published clinical studies between 2010 and 2020

• Published in: Complementary therapies in medicine Vol. 60; p. 102748
• Main Authors: Yang, Guo-Yan, Sabag, Angelo, Hao, Wen-Li, Zhang, Li-Ning, Jia, Ming-Xian, Dai, Ning, Zhang, Han, Ayati, Zahra, Cheng, Yan-Jun, Zhang, Chen-Hao, Zhang, Xiao-Wen, Bu, Fan-Long, Wen, Min, Zhou, Xian, Liu, Jian-Ping, Wayne, Peter M., Ee, Carolyn, Chang, Dennis, Kiat, Hosen, Hunter, Jennifer, Bensoussan, Alan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-08-2021; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adverse events; Balance; Bibliometrics; Biomechanics; Biomedical materials; Breast cancer; Cardiovascular diseases; Case reports; Chinese languages; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Clinical trials; Complementary therapies; Congestive heart failure; Coronary artery disease; Diabetes mellitus; Exercise; Exports; Funding; Health promotion; Hypertension; Insomnia; Intervention; Lung diseases; Martial arts; Mind-body therapies; Obstructive lung disease; Older people; Osteoarthritis; Osteopenia; Osteoporosis; Physical therapy; Physiological effects; Sleep disorders; Tai Chi; China; Complementary therapies; Tai Chi; Mind-body therapies; Exercise; Physical therapy
• ISSN: 0965-2299; 1873-6963
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2021.102748

•There was a three-fold increase from the previous decade in published studies evaluating Tai Chi on various health outcomes.•Most studies were conducted in China, followed by the United States and South Korea.•Study participants were mostly adults and older adults, who were healthy or had one or more chronic diseases.•The majority of studies reported at least one outcome in favour of Tai Chi.•Adverse events were reported in only 7 % of studies.
The objective of this bibliometric review was to identify the volume, breadth, and characteristics of clinical studies evaluating Tai Chi published between January 2010 and January 2020. Five English and four Chinese language databases were searched. Following independent screening, 1018 eligible publications representing 987 studies were identified, which was a three-fold increase from the previous decade. Most common were randomized controlled trials (548/987, 55.5 %), followed by systematic reviews (157/987, 15.9 %), non-randomized controlled clinical studies (152/987, 15.4 %), case series (127/987, 12.9 %) and case reports (3/987, 0.3 %) that were conducted in China (730/987, 74.0 %), followed by the United States of America (123/987, 12.5 %) and South Korea (20/987, 2.0 %). Study participants were mostly in the adult (55.2 %) and/or older adult (72.0 %) age groups. The top ten diseases/conditions were hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, knee osteoarthritis, heart failure, depression, osteoporosis/osteopenia, breast cancer, coronary heart disease and insomnia. A quarter of the studies enrolled healthy participants to evaluate the effects of Tai Chi on health promotion/preservation, balance/falls, and physiological/biomechanical outcomes. Yang style Tai Chi was the most popular, followed by Chen and Sun style. Tai Chi was mostly commonly delivered face-to-face by a Tai Chi instructor in group settings for 60 min, three times a week, for 12 weeks. Most studies (93.8 %) reported at least one outcome in favor of Tai Chi. Adverse events were underreported (7.2 %). Over half fell short of expected intervention reporting standards, signalling the need for Tai Chi extensions to existing guidelines.