Explosion of research on psychopathology and social media use after COVID-19: A scientometric study

Despite advances in research on psychopathology and social media use, no comprehensive review has examined published papers on this type of research and considered how it was affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.

To explore the status of research on psychopathology and social media use before and after the COVID-19 outbreak.

We used Bibliometrix (an R software package) to conduct a scientometric analysis of 4588 relevant studies drawn from the Web of Science Core Collection, PubMed, and Scopus databases.

Such research output was scarce before COVID-19, but exploded after the pandemic with the publication of a number of high-impact articles. Key authors and institutions, located primarily in developed countries, maintained their core positions, largely uninfluenced by COVID-19; however, research production and collaboration in developing countries increased significantly after COVID-19. Through the analysis of keywords, we identified commonly used methods in this field, together with specific populations, psychopathological conditions, and clinical treatments. Researchers have devoted increasing attention to gender differences in psychopathological states and linked COVID-19 strongly to depression, with depression detection becoming a new trend. Developments in research on psychopathology and social media use are unbalanced and uncoordinated across countries/regions, and more in-depth clinical studies should be conducted in the future.

After COVID-19, there was an increased level of concern about mental health issues and a changing emphasis on social media use and the impact of public health emergencies.