Status of the research in fitness apps: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Fitness applications have undergone considerable development in the last few years and becoming popular and significant in both academic and practical areas. However, contributions to the systematic mapping of this field continue to be lacking. This paper constitutes the first bibliometric study in this field to better understand the current state of research. We examined 481 records from databases Scopus and Web of Science (Core Collection) using several bibliometric analysis methods. All the records on this emerging topic were published between 2011 and 2019. We processed these records using statistical analysis and science mapping. The bibliometric analysis included the year of publication, journal name, citation, author, country, and particularly, research methodology. Additionally, we used the VOSViewer software to perform bibliometric mapping of co-authorship, co-citation of authors, and co-occurrence of keywords. This field of study, it was found, is currently in its precursor stage, contributing primarily to the fields of medicine, computer science, and health sciences. The United States appeared to have made the largest contribution to this field. However, author productivity, number of citations, and number of core journals all indicated a high degree of fragmentation of research in this field. Remarkably, scientific research in this area is expected to progress tremendously over time. Overall, this study provides basic data and research classifications for the initial phase of research and research direction for future research in this area.