Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Jun 19, 2021; 11(6): 253-264
Published online Jun 19, 2021. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i6.253
Current global research landscape on COVID-19 and depressive disorders: Bibliometric and visualization analysis
Samah W Al-Jabi
Samah W Al-Jabi, Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus 44839, West Bank, Palestine
Author contributions: Al-Jabi SW developed the concept for the manuscript, reviewed the literature, formulated research questions, collected the data, conducted analyses, and interpreted the data; Al-Jabi SW read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Samah W Al-Jabi, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Academic Street, Nablus 44839, West Bank, Palestine. samahjabi@yahoo.com
Received: January 13, 2021
Peer-review started: January 15, 2021
First decision: March 30, 2021
Revised: April 2, 2021
Accepted: May 24, 2021
Article in press: May 24, 2021
Published online: June 19, 2021
Processing time: 148 Days and 18.5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected daily life globally dramatically over the last year. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on mental health is expected to be immense and likely to be long-lasting, raising a range of global problems that need to be addressed accordingly.

AIM

To analyze the Scopus-based depression research and COVID-19, explain the advancement of research nowadays, and comment on the possible hotspots of depression research and COVID-19 to obtain a more global perspective.

METHODS

In this report, bibliometric analysis and visualization are used to explain COVID-19's global research status on depression and provide researchers with a guide to identify future research directions. Relevant studies on depression and COVID-19 were retrieved from the Scopus database. Visualization maps were produced using the VOSviewer software, including research collaboration.

RESULTS

At the time of data collection (November 18, 2020), 77217 documents were released by Scopus to COVID-19 in all areas of research. By limiting the search to depression and COVID-19 (January 2020 up until November 18, 2020), there are 1274 published articles on depression and COVID-19 in the Scopus. The great majority of which are original articles (n = 1049, 82.34%), followed by 118 review articles (9.26%), 66 letters (5.18%). The United States had the highest number of publications at 282 (22.14%), followed by China (19.07%) at 243 and Italy at 121 (9.5%). The major two clusters are signified by mental health outcomes among the general population and mental health outcomes among health care workers.

CONCLUSION

The evidence from this study found that many articles focused on mental health outcomes among the general population and health care workers. With adequate psychological support offered by the government or community agencies, mental health in various communities should be put within the local and global public health agenda. This changing situation involves the scientific community's collaborative efforts to contribute to population monitoring during quarantine and COVID-19 outbreaks and to examine the short- and long-term adverse effects on psychological well-being.

Keywords: Depression; COVID-19; Bibliometric; Scopus; Psychological distress

Core Tip: This is the first study to describe and visualize scientific research on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its effect on depression. Therefore, the current study would enable professionals, psychiatrists, and experts from other fields of medicine, in addition to local authorities and community health staff, to obtain an empirical view of the evolution of this topic because current knowledge on the main psychological distress effects of COVID-19 is scarce and little is known in the development of research on this topic.