Global trends in dysmenorrhea research: A bibliometric analysis informing pain research collaboration and clinical translation

BACKGROUND: Dysmenorrhea impacts 45% to 95% of women of childbearing age globally. Research on the neuro-immune-endocrine regulatory network has grown by 22.3% annually over the past decade, yet the field faces challenges including fragmented knowledge, insufficient collaboration, a gap between basic and clinical research, regional research bias, and the difficulty of conventional reviews in quantifying collaboration deficiencies. METHODS: A total of 1425 PubMed articles on dysmenorrhea published from 2010 to 2025 were analyzed using the bibliometrix toolkit in R. After data retrieval, screening, and preprocessing, 3 core networks were constructed and visualized. Dynamic topic evolution tracking and various statistical methods were applied to examine thematic shifts and perform data analysis. RESULTS: A notable gap exists between basic and clinical research: core terms such as "dysmenorrhea" occupy a central position, while clinical themes like "quality of life" remain sidelined. Chinese authors make up 38.7% of corresponding authors, characterized by high output but low academic impact, whereas researchers from Iran and other countries gain earlier recognition despite lower productivity. The global collaboration intensity is only 0.23; China's domestic collaboration density is 8 times higher than its international collaboration level, and cross-field collaboration is weak. Research topics exhibit high frequency, fluctuation, and isolation, especially the theme of "quality of life." CONCLUSION: This study quantitatively depicts the knowledge structure and collaborative landscape of global dysmenorrhea research, identifying core structural imbalances in the field. The findings provide empirical evidence for optimizing research resource allocation, promoting international collaboration, and bridging the gap between basic pain mechanism research and clinical translation.