Peer-reviewed article
On the research on youth mental health: A scientometric analysis across mental disorders.
Gabriele Lo Buglio, Srividya N Iyer, Muhammad Omair Husain, Tommaso Boldrini, Chaomei Chen et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This is a scientometric analysis that maps research trends in youth mental health from 1985 to 2025 by analyzing 65,684 published studies. The analysis shows how research focus has evolved from studying prevalence of specific disorders in the 1980s to more recent interest in early intervention, prevention, access to care, and global burden of mental health conditions. The document identifies that most research comes from Western countries and highlights gaps in research areas including youth involvement in outcome identification, implementation science, and social determinants of mental health.
Key points
- Research trends shifted from disorder-specific prevalence studies in the 1980s to early intervention for psychosis and prevention in the 2010s
- Recent trends (2020s-2025) focus on global evidence, age at onset, access to care, COVID-19 impacts, and non-suicidal self-injury
- Research coverage has broadened from adolescence specifically to include young adults across multiple mental health conditions
- Most studies were conducted in Western countries, with underrepresentation from other regions
- Significant research gaps exist in youth involvement in research, implementation science, economic evaluations, and social determinants of mental health
Limitations
This document is a bibliometric analysis of published research trends and does not evaluate any interventions or present primary data on child mental health outcomes. It cannot tell us about the actual effectiveness of interventions, the real-world impact of mental health services on youth, or evidence from countries with lower research output.
Abstract
In youth-i.e., adolescents and young adults-mental disorders represent a major burden on well-being and quality of life. This scientometric study aimed to map research trends concerning any mental disorder in youth. We searched the Web of Science Core Collection for studies published between 01/01/1985 and 28/08/2025, using keywords on mental disorders and youth. Co-citation reference networks were extracted. R-bibliometrix/CiteSpace were used. 65,684 studies were included, forming a well-structured co-reference network. A trend in the 1980s concerned the prevalence/outcomes of specific mental disorders such as depressive and anxiety disorders. In the 1990s/2000s, research trends concerned assessment tools, pharmacotherapy (e.g., antidepressants, antipsychotics), bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. In the 2010s, early intervention for psychosis was a dominant focus, influencing prevention in mental health. The 2010s also focused on ADHD, eating disorders, gaming disorder, autism, depression and suicide, fMRI, and transgender health, beyond gender dysphoria. In the 2020s, a recent trend has increasingly focused on global evidence on the age at onset and burden across mental disorders, access to care, network analysis, and COVID-19. Over time, research has broadened the focus from adolescence to youth across mental health problems. Both disorder-specific and transdiagnostic research trends were observed. Novel trends in 2023-2025 included substance use, lifestyle psychiatry, evidence synthesis and non-suicidal self-injury. Most studies were conducted in Western countries. Underrepresented research areas included the involvement of youth with lived/living experience in identifying meaningful outcomes, open science, implementation research, economic evaluations, machine-learning approaches, and social determinants of mental health.