A comprehensive evaluation of digital mental health literature: an integrative review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT All over the world, the way we receive a variety of services including mental health treatment has changed and been redefined by the internet and digital transformation. An important turning point in the development of digital mental health studies was the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of major journals that have a large number of publications on digital mental health research is increasing. The aim of this study is to organize groups, research directions, and related topics in the digital mental health literature by using 11 search terms, while taking into account how technology is developing and how information sharing is made simpler. A bibliometric analysis of 2440 publications from qualitative and quantitative sources was done in order to achieve this goal. Information and technology, mental health issues, and groups were the three categories of themes identified by the conceptual framework. The prominent terms comprising artificial intelligence, virtual reality, machine learning, and big data are concentrated in the information and technology-related group, and the second group comprising eating disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia are related to mental health disorders, lastly mental health nurses, children, adolescents, and young people (particularly university students) are discussed under the third group.