Bibliometric analysis of scientific literature on mental health research in Africa

This bibliometric study presents a comprehensive summary of literature published on mental health research in Africa. The region has a large number of scientific studies conducted in this area. The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of African researchers to global mental research. It also investigated the quantity of research and publications about Africa. Bibliographic information for the analysis was retrieved from the Web of Science database. Over 11,960 and 1,144 articles from 1900 to the present were culled and examined respectively. Using scientific mapping tools and performance analysis methods, this study pinpointed the top countries, institutions, collaboration patterns, prolific authors, and developing themes in this research field. Although the results showed that African scholars contributed significantly to worldwide research and publication on mental health, the number of publications that are exclusively about Africa is only 0.09% of the global output. A closer look at the data showed that South Africa really outperformed all other countries in terms of research output. Anxiety, depression, and Covid-19 were the three most common terms used by authors. The results are noteworthy for the academic community because they provided a historical context for mental health studies.