Research hotspots and frontiers of acceptance and commitment therapy for mental disorders: a bibliometric analysis

Mental disorders represent a complex and increasingly prevalent group of chronic illnesses, with a prevalence that is increasing significantly. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), as an important branch of psychotherapy, is receiving increasing attention. This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of current research status, hotspots, and future development trends of ACT for mental disorders.

A search was conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection to identify English-language publications on ACT for mental disorders from 1 January 2010 to 1 March 2024. The CiteSpace software was employed to analyze the retrieved records, including countries, institutions, journals, authors, as well as a keyword co-occurrence analysis.

790 publications on ACT for mental disorders were analyzed in this study, comprising 665 articles and 125 reviews. Since 2010, the number of publications has demonstrated a consistent upward trajectory on an annual basis. The most prolific author was Twohig MP from Utah State University, with 32 publications. The author with the highest average citation frequency is Bohlmeijer ET, with an average of 106.21 citations per paper. The highest number of publications were published in the "Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science" (94 papers), with an impact factor of 5.0. The most productive countries and institutions were the United States (283 papers) and Karolinska Inst (47 papers), respectively. A keyword analysis revealed that the most frequently occurring keywords were "acceptance and commitment therapy", "depression", and "cognitive behavioral therapy".

The number of studies on ACT for mental disorders has demonstrated a consistently increasing trend from year to year. In the clinical context, ACT is regarded as a promising method for improving mental health and psychiatric symptoms in patients with mental disorders. The visualization analysis can facilitate researchers in gaining a deeper understanding of the current status and development trend of research in this field, thereby encouraging more researchers to devote attention to the application of ACT in mental disorders.