Trends in Physical Therapy Research Using Text Mining

Abstract

[Purpose] To clarify trends in physical therapy research using text mining as a basis for promoting the effective use of this technique in physical therapy. [Participants and Methods] A literature search was conducted using the Ichushi database and 2 key words, “physical therapy” and “text mining”, to examine the year of publication, research area, sample size, software, and analysis method, as well as the way of presenting the results. [Results] Many papers analyzed open-ended survey responses in the field of education. These papers had small samples, used the same software, and often used word frequency analysis and co-occurrence network analysis. Some of them presented the results as they were output by the computer. [Conclusion] In physical therapy research, it may be efficient to use text mining for analysis of open-ended survey responses.