Mental Health Workforce in Developing Countries: A Bibliometric Study

Abstract

Mental health problems are one of the highest causes of disability. Unfortunately, the numbers of the mental health workforce are minimal. Moreover, problems related to mental health in developing countries are complex. This study describes the general trends and analyzes relevant indicators from aspects of types of articles, authors, citations, journals, countries, and author keywords. This article applies a bibliometric methodology. Data were retrieved from the Scopus database and visualized using VOSviewer. The study focuses on 79 English writing documents published annually on the mental health workforce in developing countries. Based on the analysis, the most influential article entitled "The mental health workforce gap in low-and middle-income countries: A needs-based approach" was written in 2011. The most influential author is Dal Poz M.R, who has written two documents and cited 204 times. The country with the most citations was the United States, with 729 sources of 22 documents, while the country with the most productive publications was the United Kingdom, with 25 documents and 516 citations. Based on keyword analysis, the subject area of the research was dominated by the health public service area. Meanwhile, various challenges in the mental health workforce, such as burnout, task sharing, and task shifting, are still infrequent. Only a few documents use Covid-19 and pandemic as author keywords. Therefore, it is critical to carry out further studies.