Bibliometric and visual analysis of digital healthcare in cancer pain management via mobile apps

Background: Cancer pain is a common symptom among cancer patients, and although opioid drugs are effective, they have side effects and abuse issues. In recent years, mobile apps have gradually been used as digital healthcare for cancer pain management. By visualizing and analyzing the literature on the control of cancer pain through mobile apps, we aim to understand the current research status and hot issues in this field and explore future directions for digital smart healthcare research. Methods: CiteSpace software was used to visually analyze 252 articles on mobile app-based cancer pain control indexed by the Web of Science core collection database from 1995 to 2024. Microsoft Excel 2021 and GraphPad were used to draw world maps to evaluate the number of national articles and generate trend charts for annual publications. Results: Visual analysis revealed that the number of publications has been increasing annually. In terms of the number of published articles, the top 3 countries are the United States, China, and Australia. The analysis of highly cited literature indicates that the main apps involved are Pain Buddy, mHealth, The Pain Guard app, The mHealth Pain Squad+, and STAR, which target adults, children, and adolescents. Keywords and citation analysis indicate that quality of life, pain, breast cancer, palliative care, and mobile health may be hotspots and future directions of cancer pain research in mobile apps. Conclusion: Digital healthcare via mobile apps provides intelligent assistance for treating cancer pain, which is conducive to developing intelligent and painless cancer treatment and management strategies.