OBJECTIVETo investigate the quoted regular patterns for the quotations and informative absorbing capability of the Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, and analyze the characteristics of literature requirement of scientific researcher and clinical workers in the acupuncture and moxibustion field, so as to offer suggestion on literature utilization and provide references to development of the Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion.

METHODSBibliometrical Citation analysis was used to analyze the references cited from 2000 to 2006 according to the time sequence of publishing.

RESULTSThe citation rate was 76.6%, and citations per article was 4.3. Most of the citations were mainly cited from journals (82.0%) and books (17.2%). The Price Index was 43.7%, and the self-citation rates for author and periodical were 16.3% and 9.1% respectively. The citations from the high-ranked 10 journals were accounted for 31.4% of all citations.

CONCLUSIONChinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion is a highly authorized academic periodical in the field of acupuncture and moxibustion. The citations are mainly cited from periodicals written in Chinese and English. They are of good novelty and quality, but the citation rate should be further raised.