Network Meta-analysis has been widely applied in the field of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) due to its unique advantages. This study aimed to conduct a visual analysis on the state of the application network Meta-analysis in the field of traditional Chinese medicine. Databases of CNKI and Web of Science were retrieved to identify the qualified literatures and then screen out their titles and abstracts. Institutions, authors, cited references, and keywords were analyzed using the information visualization analysis software CiteSpace. Finally, 79 English and 186 Chinese articles were included. The results indicated that the literatures were mainly published in Chinese, and the number of articles was increased rapidly since 2015. Cooperation between institutions and authors were mainly concentrated inside the institutions. The most important four institutions were four universities who attached more importance to evidence-based medical education and academic exploration. The keywords beside the method of network Meta-analysis could be summarized into three types: the main interventions in traditional Chinese medicine(Chinese herbal injection, herb medicine, acupuncture, etc.), disease types(cancer, circulatory system disease, bone joint disease, urinary system disease, etc.) and the outcome of interests(efficacy, safety, symptom, survive, mortality, etc.), which reflected the current research hotspots to certain extent. In addition, the most cited articles were methodology articles, including the introduction of methodology and the guides of application software, suggesting that the exploration of methodological articles will be extremely concerned.
Keywords: CiteSpace; information visualization; knowledge map; network Meta-analysis; traditional Chinese medicine.