Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2021 Oct 1;66:102878. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102878

Publication trends related to schizophrenia, mental health, and depression during COVID-19

Zalik Nuryana a,b,⁎, Ghadah Al Murshidi c, Arif Rahman b
PMCID: PMC8485721  PMID: 34634657

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze publication trends related to schizophrenia, mental health, and depression during COVID-19 in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry. In 2020, 576 articles were identified using bibliometric analysis from scopus.com. According to the results, India had the most articles on schizophrenia, mental health, and depression, followed by China, Australia, Bangladesh, and Japan, during COVID-19. Meanwhile, the most frequently used keywords were schizophrenia (n = 39), COVID-19 (n = 35), mental health (n = 23), depression (n = 22), and adolescents (n = 12). These represent the trend of publications related to the topics discussed in 2020. Moreover, alternative research themes such as life quality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, metabolic syndrome, prevalence, and mental illness can be used in the future.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, Mental health, Depression, COVID-19, Asian Journal of Psychiatry

1. Introduction

COVID-19 has had a significant impact across the board, including research and scientific publications (Harper et al., 2020). Moreover, regulations aimed at reducing the risk of spread are being implemented which have an impact on the number of scientific publishing (Omary et al., 2020). On the other hand, the number of COVID-19 related publications is increasing. Based on this, cases of the COVID-19 spread in various locations have also risen. As a result, the role of scientific issuing, in this case, journals, is needed to aid in the provision of valid and timely information about COVID-19 (Tandon, 2020b). Additionally, the Asian Journal of Psychiatry has adopted the spirit of preserving humanity, maintaining sanity, and promoting health (Tandon, 2020a), which we greatly appreciate. Editorial decisions that have smart concepts about journal decisions and regulations related to the journal’s function in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 should be used as inspiration for other journals. While maintaining the journal’s high quality and humanitarian goals, it becomes a reference for issues related to COVID-19 and mental health (Tandon, 2021b).

The authors respond to the Asian Journal of Psychiatry's information receiving 3926 manuscripts in 2020, with a total of 589 published in eight editions, and 576 publications indexed in the scopus.com database (Tandon, 2021c). According to these findings, it is possible to conclude that this journal has a very high reputation and significant authority to publish psychiatric articles for psychiatrists, mental health physicians, neurologists, physicians, mental health students, and those involved in mental health policy development. In addition, the authors intend to complete it using bibliographical analysis and the Bibliometrix R package to perform the analysis (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017).

Publication trends related to schizophrenia, mental health, and depression during COVID-19 can be used as a reference for other researchers developing ideas in response to these patterns. The aim of this article is to analyze publication trends related to schizophrenia, mental health, and depression during COVID-19 in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry. Likewise, author, author’s country, and keywords are used as discussion material to strengthen information about how this has become a journal that has made a significant contribution to COVID-19 mitigation.

2. Method

This research is an analytical bibliometric study of publication trends related to schizophrenia, mental health, and depression during COVID-19 in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry. The issue in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry was obtained from the database (http://www.scopus.com) on 26/08/2021. Then, the data were analyzed with the R-based Biblioshiny app (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017), which can be downloaded freely from: https://bibliometrix.org/.

The database used also contains information for up to 576 articles published in 2020, with details on the articles types 222; conference paper 1; editorial 4; erratum 3; letter 323; note 1; retracted 1; and reviews 21.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Three-field plot analyses are performed: the author, author’s country, and keywords

Fig. 1 depicts the correlations of the three units, namely author, author's country, and keywords, using a three-field plot analysis. We are using the Number of items 20, which means that all of the fields displayed have a value of 20: 20 authors, 20 countries, and 20 keywords. These three elements are plotted with gray relationships to show the relationship between one field and the next, beginning with the author's country, authors, and top research keywords. The number of articles associated with each element is indicated by the size of each rectangle in each list. Also, the center plane (AU_CO) is the focal point of this three-plane plot. In 2020, the top 5 countries are shown, with India having the most articles, followed by China, Australia, Bangladesh, and Japan. Furthermore, Fig. 1 illustrates the 5 most frequently published themes in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry, being schizophrenia, COVID-19, depression, mental health, and adolescents, each of which is represented by a green rectangle (DE). The larger the rectangle, the more research themes appear; thus, this study described a popular research theme.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Open in a new tab

Three-field plot correlations in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry.

3.2. The author’s contribution

We analyzed the top 5 authors to determine the author’s influence, total publications, and author’s collaborations. According to Fig. 2, Rajkumar RP ranks first with a total of 964 citations, articles with the title COVID-19 and mental health: Review of the existing literature (Rajkumar, 2020), as well as had a significant impact on the development of research on COVID-19 and mental health. The second most cited is Roy D's study on knowledge research, attitudes, anxiety, and perceived mental health needs in the Indian population during the COVID-19 pandemic (Roy et al., 2020), with 486 citations. Next is Ahmed MZ, with 299 quotations for his research on the COVID-19 Epidemic in China and related Psychological Problems (Ahmed et al., 2020). Spoorthy MS follows with a study on Mental health problems faced by healthcare workers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic–A review (Spoorthy, 2020) which has 247. Subsequently, Zandifar A’s research on Iranian mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic (Zandifar and Badrfam, 2020) has received 235 citations. Finally, Mamun MA’s on First COVID-19 suicide case in Bangladesh due to COVID-19 fear and xenophobia: Possible suicide prevention strategies (Mamun and Griffiths, 2020), with 216 references. Certainly, this discovery is extraordinary. We see that the author receives a large number of citations in the 2020–2021 period, which will continue to increase over time.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Open in a new tab

Author’s most globally cited documents.

Another aspect of the author that deserves to be highlighted is the writing collaboration. This will indicate international communication between researchers in a scientific discipline. Furthermore, other researchers, including novice researchers, can contact the author in a country where there is a high level of collaboration to research in the same field. Fig. 3 shows Single Country Publications (SCP) and Multiple Country Publications (MCP) in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry. According to this Journal, the countries with the most SCPs are India, China, Japan, the USA, and Iran. Meanwhile, based on the MCP data, China has the most MCP with 23 articles, India has20 articles, the United Kingdom has 10 articles, and the United States, as well as Bangladesh, has 8 articles.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

Open in a new tab

Single country publications and multiple country publications in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry.

3.3. The most frequent keywords and future research based on the journal’s aim scope

Keywords are essential for researching trends. Aside from being a keyword research trend, it also makes it easy for researchers and readers to find topics related to their disciplines (McDonnell, 2010). The precision with which these words are chosen will have an impact on the ease of access to searches as well as the themes that are currently being discussed. Each keyword which consists of one word or variations of two words will determine the literature search and research. The most used keywords in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry in 2020 can be seen in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

Open in a new tab

The most used keywords of 2020 publication

According to Fig. 4, the most popular words were schizophrenia (n = 39), COVID-19 (n = 35), mental health (n = 23), depression (n = 22), and adolescents (n = 12). In other words, the most common topics for publication in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry in 2020 were schizophrenia, COVID-19, and depression. This ensures that this journal has a very high reputation among publications in the related field. In addition, this finding can be used to develop an interesting theme that can be published in this journal, one that is related to schizophrenia, COVID-19, and depression. This result is supported by the Thematic Map analysis as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 5

Open in a new tab

Thematic map analysis.

The research topic in the red circle is a theme trend that can be developed in the future. The multi-disciplinary theme is another intriguing concept to be implemented after COVID-19. Fig. 5 depicts several possible clusters, including life quality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, metabolic syndrome, prevalence, and mental illness. Following the journal’s aim scope, several topics with green, blue, purple, yellow, as well as gray colors become recommendations for future research. Moreover, the Asian Journal of Psychiatry is planning several new sections, including medical education, thematic collections, Asian Psychiatry and World Psychiatry, COVID-19, and Mental Health (Tandon, 2021a).

4. Conclusion

Schizophrenia, mental health, and depression became trending publication topics in 2020. The Asian Journal of Psychiatry has established itself as a highly reputable journal with outputs that have become a reference in the field of Psychiatry and its derivatives, especially research on mental health and COVID-19. Researchers must be able to consider research in this area for the journal’s aim scope to be met. Moreover, the author, author’s country, and trending keywords have been explained and can be used as a reference for future research. Research trends are also important for identifying novelty and patterns to publish in this journal. The subject of COVID-19 will continue to dominate in 2020–2021, however, henceforth, researchers can consider other themes such as life quality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, metabolic syndrome, prevalence, and mental illness to be used as research themes and thus published in this journal.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nanjing Normal University, China, and Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Indonesia, for the granted supports.

References

  1. Ahmed M.Z., Ahmed O., Aibao Z., Hanbin S., Siyu L., Ahmad A. Epidemic of COVID-19 in China and associated psychological problems. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102092. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Aria M., Cuccurullo C. bibliometrix: an R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. J. Informetr. 2017;11(4):959–975. doi: 10.1016/j.joi.2017.08.007. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  3. Harper L., Kalfa N., Beckers G.M.A., Kaefer M., Nieuwhof-Leppink A.J., Fossum M., Herbst K.W., Bagli D. The impact of COVID-19 on research. J. Pediatr. Urol. 2020;16(5):715–716. doi: 10.1016/j.jpurol.2020.07.002. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Mamun M.A., Griffiths M.D. First COVID-19 suicide case in Bangladesh due to fear of COVID-19 and xenophobia: possible suicide prevention strategies. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102073. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. McDonnell K.A. The key to keywords. J. Spec. Group Work. 2010;35(1):3–6. doi: 10.1080/01933920903463361. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  6. Omary M.B., Eswaraka J., Kimball S.D., Moghe P.V., Panettieri R.A., Scotto K.W. The COVID-19 pandemic and research shutdown: staying safe and productive. J. Clin. Investig. 2020;130:2745–2748. doi: 10.1172/JCI138646. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Rajkumar R.P. COVID-19 and mental health: a review of the existing literature. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;52 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102066. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Roy D., Tripathy S., Kar S.K., Sharma N., Verma S.K., Kaushal V. Study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in Indian population during COVID-19 pandemic. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Spoorthy M.S. Mental health problems faced by healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic–a review. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102119. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Tandon R. COVID-19 and mental health: preserving humanity, maintaining sanity, and promoting health. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102256. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Tandon R. The COVID-19 pandemic, personal reflections on editorial responsibility. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;50 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102100. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Tandon R. COVID-19 and the Asian Journal of Psychiatry: keeping 2020 in the rear-view mirror. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2021;56 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102569. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Tandon R. The bitter lessons of COVID-19: acknowledging and working through many points of tension. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2021;55 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102545. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Tandon R. Behind the scenes at the Asian Journal of Psychiatry 1. Initial editorial processing. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2021;57 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102602. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Zandifar A., Badrfam R. Iranian mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic. Asian J. Psychiatry. 2020;51 doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.101990. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Asian Journal of Psychiatry are provided here courtesy of Elsevier

RESOURCES