Research Trends on Healthcare Wearables Published in Korean Journals

2.1. Data collection

To examine the research trends of healthcare wearables in Korea, we extracted articles that were found with the keywords “healthcare”, “wearable devices”, and “sensors”, from 2010 to 2019. Out of 1,002 articles extracted from academic paper search sites, such as Korea Research Index (KCI), Regional Information Sharing System, and Date Base pia (DBPIA), 812 articles (excluding those related to space, housing, and law) were analyzed to determine research trends for healthcare wearables.

2.2. Data classification and analysis method

This study attempted to analyze the trend of domestic research on overall healthcare wearables by examining the distribution over a specified research period, academic field, research subject, research method, and keyword. For analysis, the field of study was classified according to the classifi-cation system for academic research by the KCI, and the research was classified into six subjects: technology development, technology analysis, design development, design analysis, marketing development, and marketing analysis. The research methods were classified into development and production, trend analysis, experimentation, and keyword analysis in each paper (Table 1). The data classification method was included in the field, based on the article title, or the main content of the entire article.

Table 1.

Classification of healthcare wearables article

Each data was expressed as a frequency and percentage according to the study period, research category, research subject, research method, and keyword distribution. Finally, all of the data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0.

3.1. Analysis based on the research period

From 2010 to 2019, 812 studies on healthcare wearables were conducted year-by-year, to analyze the direction in which they changed over time and understand the research flow. The distribution of each healthcare wearable-related study, according to the year, is depicted in Fig. 1. According to the year-by-year trend, approximately 50 articles were published steadily from 2010 to 2013. Then, the figure repre-sented a 34% on-year increase in 2014. Since 2015, approxi-mately 100 articles have been published, with 120 of them published in 2017, demonstrating that steady research is underway to date. The results reveal that 72.4% of the total published articles in 2014 have been active in healthcare wearables since then. In December 2013, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Energy announced the 6th Industrial Technology Innovation Plan (2014-2018). This plan focused on developing wearable computer technologies in the medical and entertainment fields. Because of this plan, global ICT companies launched more advanced wearable devices than before, and competition in the wearable device market was in full swing, especially in the healthcare sector (Lee & Shin, 2016).

Fig. 1.

Number of healthcare wearable articles by year.

3.2. Analysis according to main research category

According to the system of classification by KCI, the 812 research articles in this study were categorized into five disciplines: engineering, interdisciplinary studies, arts and kinesiology, social sciences, and natural sciences. The breakdown, depicted in Fig. 2, was as follows: engineering 376 (46.3%), interdisciplinary studies 188 (23.2%), arts and kinesiology 139 (17.1%), 64 (7.9%) in social sciences, and 45 (5.5%) in natural sciences. Engineering was identified as the most active research category for healthcare wearables. This demonstrates that healthcare wearables are designed based on technology, yet they have a multidisciplinary and convergence character.

Fig. 2.

Distribution of research articles by discipline (main category).

In terms of the research discipline (main category), 59 journals were included in the field of engineering, with 40.4% of the articles focused on electronic information and communication engineering, among 12 divisions. In the field of interdisciplinary studies, 26 journals were included, and 52.1% of the articles focused on interdisciplinary research, among five divisions. In the field of social sciences, 38 journals were included, with 43.8% of the articles focused on business management, among 15 divisions. In the field of arts and kinesiology, 31 journals were included, with 59.7% of the articles focused on design, among six divisions. In the field of natural sciences, 12 articles were included, with 88.9% focused on life science, among five divisions (Table 2).

Table 2.

Number of research journals and articles by discipline (main category) and sub-category (middle category)

The trend of year-by-year presentations across the main categories is depicted in Fig. 3. In the field of engineering, more than 30 articles were published annually from 2010 to the present, and with 91 articles (24.8%) published between 2016 and 2017, we deemed that the most active research was conducted that year. In the field of interdisciplinary studies, more than 10 articles were published annually since 2013, and 64.4% of the articles in the field were published since 2016, indicating activity until recently. In social science, 26 articles (40.6%) were published between 2009 and 2019. In the field of art and kinesiology, 31 articles were published in 2015, and the number of publications decreased since then, indicating that the most active research year was 2015 for this field. The field of natural science has shown a very low level of research in regards to healthcare wearables in comparison with other fields; however, the publication of 17 articles (37.8%), between 2018 and 2019. indicated an increasing trend recently.

Fig. 3.

Distributions of articles by discipline (main research category) from 2010 to 2019.

In summary, healthcare wearable research has been studied broadly across various disciplines (main categories), suggesting that healthcare and wearables have different influences on human life as a whole, are impacted by social changes, and are influenced by changes within science and communication technologies.

3.3. Categorization by research subject

Research trends were analyzed by classifying them into six subjects: technology development, technology analysis, design development, design analysis, marketing development, and marketing analysis. Research involving the development of healthcare-related systems, development of apps or mobile content, development of healthcare wearable devices and products, and development of major technologies applied to healthcare wearable devices were all classified as technical development. This study investigated experiments, literature, and cases for these technologies, which were then classified as technical analysis. Design development included a conceptual proposal and design of clothing and products for healthcare wearable device functions, presenting visual information design, and design guidelines, such as display design. The design analysis focused on articles that analyzed the design of these products, through examples or literature. Marketing development included research on non-visual outcomes related to assessment criteria, service scenarios, strategy development, and proposals. Finally, the marketing analysis focused on articles related to the assessment of the developed program, service, or system, either through surveys or experiments.

When analyzing the percentage distribution of the overall paper by research subject, 46.6% of the research focused on technology development, followed by 23.0% for marketing analysis, 14.5% for technology analysis, 7.3% for design development, 4.6% for marketing development, and 4.1% for design analysis (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.

Distribution of articles by research subject.

Table 3 presents the results of categorizing specific sub-topics for each research subject. In the area of technology development, healthcare wearable device technical development stood out as a primary research topic with 152 articles (40.2%) focused on healthcare wearables, such as sensing technology, output technology, processing technology, and power technology. Similarly, 59 articles (15.6%) studied mobile content and/or application development. There were 49 articles (13.0%) and 41 articles (10.8%) that studied healthcare system development and security/certification system development, respectively.

Table 3.

Distribution of specific sub-topics for each research subject

Regarding the topic of technical analysis, 65 articles (55.1%) were studies to evaluate and analyze the performance of technologies needed to develop wearable devices and medical devices, whereas 23 articles (19.5%) were focused on technology analysis and research trends. In the subject of design development, 46 articles (83.1%) focused on the design development of healthcare wearables, whereas 25 articles (75.8%) were published on the design analysis subject, which was deemed to have been analyzed according to design development. Regarding the topic of marketing development, 46.8% of the respondents suggested policies and strategies for healthcare services. While 72 articles (38.5%) analyzed consumer behavior for healthcare wearables, 71 articles (38.0%) analyzed consumer behavior for healthcare services.

By looked at the trends year-to-year, it was observed that the subject of technology development was the most actively researched since 2010. Despite a slowdown in publication in 2015, the resurgence in the number of article announcements since 2016 indicated that steady research on technology development has been underway for the past decade. Research on technology analysis was indicated to be a growing trend from 2014 onwards, indicating that analysis of existing technologies was being conducted. Design development and design analysis began in earnest in 2014, and the highest number of articles was published in 2017, despite having slowed down in recent years. While research on marketing development exhibited an extremely poor performance over the last 10 years in comparison with other topics, the marketing analysis topic, which analyzed consumer behavior for the developed products and services, demonstrated that research in this area has been active since 2015, in parallel to the subject of technology analysis (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.

Distributions of research articles by subject from 2010 to 2019.

3.4. Categorization by research method

For this study, the methodology characteristics of healthcare wearable studies were analyzed by developing and producing research methods, trend analysis, experimentation, and survey. If more than one method was found to apply in an article, it was multi-treated. As a result, 35.9% of the research conducted was classified as development and production methods, including product development and production, system development, content proposal, protocol or algorithm development, and performance evaluation guidelines. The literature survey for case studies and research trend analysis was classified as a trend analysis method, and 22.4% of the articles were categorized as this class; 24.8% were classified as experiments and evaluations, including experiments or developments for technology development, and evaluation methods for verification of manufactured products and systems. The use of a survey was classified as a survey method, including those analyzed through surveys, in-depth interviews, reviews and interviews to analyze consumer behavior, and service and product reviews. This method accounted for 16.9% of the total distribution (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6.

Distributions of articles by research method.

The distribution of research methods used for each research subject is depicted in Fig. 7. In the case of technology development, 63.3% focused on development and production, and 31.3% focused on experiments and evaluations that were found to confirm the results of prior studies. Technology analysis demonstrated that 47.6% of the articles analyzed the technology through literature or examples, and 50.0% of the articles focused on experimentation. Design development revealed that 43.2% of the respondents suggested or produced the final product immediately, whereas 28.4% used various research methods for trend analysis through literature or case studies, 17.3% utilized experimentation, and 11.1% used the survey. The design analysis confirmed that 79.5% of the articles focused on studies through literature or case studies, and 20.5% of the articles presented a survey on trends, as well as an evaluation of questionnaires, interviews, and designs. In the case of marketing development, 59.6% of the researchers conducted a trend analysis, whereas 29.8% suggested an evaluation guideline, or strategies and policies. Marketing analysis demonstrated that 67.1% of the analyzed articles used reviews, interviews, and questionnaires predominantly. Many articles that used various methods of research were found by both literature and case studies/surveys.

Fig. 7.

Distributions of articles in research methods by research subject.

3.5. Keyword analysis

For this study, 3,675 keywords extracted from 812 articles were analyzed to identify the primary keywords used over the last 10 years. By referring to the keywords of each article, the research titles were grouped together into the top five categories: devices, healthcare, big data, convergence technologies, and others. Excluding the others category, the remaining 3,150 keywords were grouped as follows: 1,585 (48.1%) were related to devices, 1,075 (32.6%) were related to healthcare, 253 (7.7%) were related to big data, and 237 (7.2%) were related to healthcare convergence technologies. Looking at the details of each category, the devices category was classified into healthcare wearable devices, technologies for device development, and consumer behavior for device use. Healthcare was classified into healthcare, healthcare services, smart healthcare, consumer behavior for healthcare services, and wellness. Big data was classified into biometric data and database. Convergence technology was classified into convergence with AI, convergence with IoT, and convergence with design (Table 4).

Table 4.

Healthcare wearable keywords

To identify the research trend for healthcare wearables, we conducted a year-by-year keywords analysis as shown in Fig. 8 and Table 5. Approximately 100 articles on devices were published from 2010 to 2013. This number increased to 254 from 2014 to 2017. A closer look indicated that technologies related to smart device development were steadily underway since 2010 and more active since 2015. Based on these technologies, research on healthcare devices began in earnest in 2012, demonstrated the most activity in 2017, and then significantly decreased in 2018, whereas wearable devices exhibited the most articles published in 2017 and continued research until 2018. This trend showed that research on consumer behavior, based on device use, was also active between 2016 and 2017. Focusing on the keywords related to big data, it was observed that research has been underway in earnest since 2012. In contrast, the keywords for biometric data represented a downward trend after a considerable amount of research was conducted in 2012; however, since 2017, they began to appear most frequently with cloud data in 2018. Healthcare-related keywords were published in less than 100 articles by 2014, and showed an increase beginning in 2015, up to 162 articles in 2017. Specifically, keywords related to smart healthcare and healthcare services were consistently high since 2010, accounting for the largest portion in 2017. We observed that wellness keywords started to increase in 2015 and showed considerable amount of activity in this field until recently. Keywords related to convergence displayed an increasing trend in the number of published articles since 2015. However, this number was extremely low in comparison with other fields, although studies on convergence between the IoT and healthcare were frequently observed since 2015, and studies on AI and healthcare recently increased in comparison with other years.

Fig. 8.

Number of keywords by year.

Table 5.

Breakdown of detailed keywords identified by year