Mapping the big picture of mental health literacy in education: a bibliometric analysis

Table of Contents

Publication trends

Figure 2 presents a longitudinal analysis of the publication trend in MHL from 2000 to 2023, examining the annual number of documents published, which can be categorised into articles, reviews, and the total number of documents. The x-axis represents the years, whereas the y-axis represents the number of documents published from 0 to 250. The blue line depicts the articles, the orange line shows reviews, and the yellow line indicates the total number of documents.

Findings revealed a relatively stable and low publication rate from 2000 to 2010. However, starting from around 2010, a gentle increase in publications started showing up; in particular, an upsurge has been observed from 2015 onwards. A sharp upward trajectory from 2018 to 2023 indicated substantial growth in MHL research activity. Both articles and reviews increased substantially, with articles being more numerous. Influential publications shaped MHL research’s directions and scopes during the booming period. Initial conceptual frameworks advanced by Jorm et al. in 1997 and updated in 2012 established the basis for defining MHL. They elevated its perceived importance in reducing stigma and improving help-seeking behaviour. Subsequently, the intervention-oriented studies introduced by Kutcher and colleagues in 2015 accentuated mental health literacy in education settings, driving policy initiatives to integrate mental health curricula in schools. The works established a greater scholarly interest while guiding later interventions targeting adolescents, university students, and culturally diverse groups. Recent scholars have broadened MHL research to encompass culturally diverse groups, increasing inclusivity and including digital tools to enhance accessibility and engagement in mental health education.

Top authors

In overall productivity terms, Wei Y heads the table with a record 21 articles. Following Wei are Kutcher S and Jorm AF, with 19 and 17 articles, respectively. Jorm AF was noticed to have been published over a long time. This fact speaks to both its productivity as well as its continued impact, with some articles receiving their due even after quite a while. The author output in time or author production across the authors in the field is captured in Fig. 3 below. It shows the trends in publication output and citation impact of various authors in the field. Wei Y is a consistently active author over the period 2002–2022. Wei Y has never published more than 4 articles in a particular year, specifically 2014–2015, though there has been good traction in citations received in those years. Likewise, Kutcher S has remained active in publishing throughout the period, to a maximum of 3 articles in specific years.

The most cited author is Jorm AF; his research centres on MHL and is mainly concerned with empowering communities through awareness and education. The most impactful article, Mental health literacy: empowering the community to take action, has been cited 1079 times, thus reflecting its importance in the field. Another highly cited work is Mental Health Literacy Measures Evaluating Knowledge, attitudes, and Help-seeking by Wei Y, McGrath PJ, Hayden J, and Kutcher S, with 283 citations measuring MHL. The slow growth over the years in the citation counts reflects Jorm’s contribution to and influence as a pioneer in the discussion within the field and underlines that he is a key figure in setting the research trend on MHL. Other distinguished authors include Goldney RD, whose work spans from the early-2000s up to 2012, with a maximum of 60 citations per year. While Vella SA’s contribution was mainly from 2014 to 2016, his impact was noteworthy.

Countries collaborations

The international collaboration in MHL research, as visualised in Fig. 4, highlights the interconnected nature of scholarly work across different countries with a minimum productivity of five documents.

The network graph indicates strong collaboration links among countries such as Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and China. Australia and the USA take the positions of the joint node, with a high level of collaborative links, suggesting that these countries play leading roles in MHL research. The links between these countries and other countries such as Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom indicate a globally linked community dedicated to furthering MHL.

Table 2 also gives the output level and extent of collaboration among the top active countries in MHL from 2000 to 2023. Australia, leading the overall number of publications with 109, alone accounts for 16.3% of total output; remarkably, it receives a high citation per article (C/A) of 43.0, proving the utmost quality and impact of contribution towards research. The United States follows closely with its 102 publications and the highest link strength of 44, symbolising a high level of cooperation in writing. With the great impact of citations and collaborative networks, the UK, Canada, and China made tremendous efforts. These findings underscored the roles of these countries in propelling MHL research, establishing avenues for international partnerships, and contributing to the global understanding and promotion of MHL.

Table 2 List of top countries and extent of research collaboration in MHL (2000–2023).

Leading journals

The analysis of the top ten active journals related to the concern of MHL from 2000 to 2023, as presented in Table 3, highlights the significant venues for scholarly communication and research dissemination.

Table 3 List of prolific journals in MHL (2000–2023).

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health topped the list of published journals with 25 papers, making up 5.3% of the total number of articles in this discipline, amassing a total of 317 citations in all, getting a citation per article (C/A) rate of 12.7. Among others, BMC Psychiatry and BMC Public Health also rank with the strongest influence with 16 contributions each and significantly high C/A ratios of 36.6 and 44.7, respectively, which already seem to be in whatever infinitesimal way compensated in favour of the respective journals. Early Intervention in Psychiatry showed a remarkably high C/A value of 45.1 for only 12 publications, demonstrating its strong influence in the field despite a relatively lower publication frequency. Similarly, Psychiatry Research exhibited an even higher citation per article (C/A) value of 47.5, accumulating 380 citations from just 8 publications.

From the density visualisation of sources in MHL research (Fig. 5), the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Journal of Public Mental Health, and Journal of Health Literacy are highlighted as the most dominant publication outlets. The most intense regions in the heat map denote a noticeably higher density of citations, underscoring their central role in disseminating MHL research. Another major highlight here is that the disciplines of public health, mental health literacy, and interdisciplinary health research largely represent the MHL research. This clearly shows the importance of space in MHL research by assignments within a more extensive discussion about public health, where there has been a growing emphasis on the social and environmental determinants of mental health literacy, as observed in the Journal of Public Mental Health. The Journal of Health Literacy, which also appears as another high-density node, points out a close connection between general health literacy and mental health literacy. It further confirms the need to develop integrated health communication strategies. Another angle of insight is the nature of cooperation, as indicated by the voices from psychology, such as Frontiers in Psychology and BMC Public Health. Even if this is not among the three prime suspect categories, it indicates significant engagement with MHL discourse. This implies that MHL study is no longer being carved out strictly for journals caused by classic treatment methods of mental health and psychiatry perspectives but integrating into a broader mosaic framed out of wider studies in health education, policy, and literacy work. Overall impressions from this heatmap confirm public health and health literacy journals as the principal dissemination outlets for MHL research, with citation density highest for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Journal of Public Mental Health, and Journal of Health Literacy. Drawing on these outlets provides a glimpse into the changing trend for MHL research. It thus builds the narrative toward widening relevance across more fields, including public health, psychology, and education.

Key terms

Figure 6 depicts a word cloud visualisation of keywords, titles, and abstracts from the literature analysed in descending order of frequency. Each term was plotted according to its relative frequency, with the size representing the most frequently occurring terms. The three most dominant terms from the dataset were Mental health (636 occurrences), Health literacy (548 occurrences), and Female (389 occurrences). These three terms suggest that research in this field focuses primarily on mental health awareness and health literacy with a high emphasis on gender aspects.

In addition to these core terms, the other focused words appearing most frequently are Human, Male, Adult, Adolescent, Depression, and Mental disease. Such terms indicate a strong focus on demographics such as gender, age, and mental health conditions. These conclusions are further emphasised in Table 4, which shows the ten most frequent key terms.

Table 4 Top 10 key terms.

The word cloud also indicates the empirical orientation of research approaches. For instance, these include Controlled study and Questionnaire. Hence, this highlights the need to focus on practical studies and assessments within the field. Future research may continue, exploring diverse demographic perspectives and methodological approaches to develop an understanding of MHL.

Research indicators

The terms map established clusters of closely related terms frequently appearing in MHL publications. These seven clusters displayed in Fig. 7 and Table 5 serve as indicators of distinct research areas in MHL visualisation. Recognising these clusters has provided a good tool for noticing and understanding the main research themes and subfields in MHL visualisation.

Table 5 Indicators for MHL research.

The network visualisation in Fig. 7 provides insight into the networking grouping related to MHL research. This visualisation denotes key research indicators and their interrelations. Clusters of different colours indicate areas such as mental health, female, education, stigma, and literacy. The size of each node indicates the frequency and significance of the term, while the links between the nodes signify the relationships and co-occurrences among various terms.

There are mainly 7 clusters within the MHL field, as shown in Table 5.

Cluster 1 Mental Health and Attitudes (Red). The red cluster formed around the term humans (occurrence 360), connecting 96 nodes. This cluster thematically converged around mental health and attitudes, including depression, health knowledge, and practices, a total of 2082 occurrences. The most common terms from this cluster are humans, adults, depression, attitude towards health, health knowledge, attitudes, and practice. Overall, these terms were closely connected to the core terms of the other clusters. The main co-occurring terms of this cluster are humans, adults, depression, attitude towards health, health knowledge, attitudes, practice, middle-aged, schizophrenia, aged, education, mental health service, and educational status.

Cluster 2 MHL in Educational Contexts (Green). The green cluster formed around MHL (occurrence 375), which connected 83 nodes. This cluster encompassed 2310 occurrences, with a focus on the intersection of MHL and education. The most common terms in this cluster are MHL, adolescent, mental disease, literacy, and stigma, with these among the top ten for frequency. The main co-occurring terms of this cluster were: MHL, adolescent, mental disease, help-seeking behaviour, literacy, stigma, human experiment, student, and health education.

Cluster 3 Interventions and Literacy (Blue). The blue cluster revolved around mental health (occurrence 381), connecting 62 nodes. This cluster represented various interventions addressing aspects of human mental health, comprising 1992 occurrences. The most common terms in this cluster are mental health, human, health literacy, article, controlled study, and anxiety-all among the top in frequency. The main co-occurring terms of this cluster were: human, mental health, health literacy, article, controlled study, anxiety, randomised controlled trial, distress syndrome, qualitative research, social support.

Cluster 4 Psychometric Methods (Lime Green). Indicated by the lime green colour, this cluster centred on the term female and included 1017 occurrences. This cluster was thematically cohesive, as it consisted of 62 nodes revolving around psychometric methods. Key terms in this cluster included female, questionnaire, cross-sectional study, surveys and questionnaires, and procedures. The main co-occurring terms in this cluster were female, questionnaire, cross-sectional study, surveys and questionnaires, procedures, psychometry, reproducibility, demography, reliability, and university student.

Cluster 5 Risk Factors and Stigma in Young Adults (Purple). Cluster purple revolved around the mental health risk factors and stigma in young adults, with a total of 600 occurrences. This cluster stood for 29 items dominated by the overlapping usage of the terms psychology, mental disorders, and young adult. The thematic glue of this entire cluster revolved around psychological studies and mental health issues in young adults. Some of the other main co-occurring terms within this cluster were psychology, mental disorders, young adults, social stigma, patient attitude, university, psychosis, family, and risk assessment.

Cluster 6 Health care personnel (light blue). This cluster consisted of 23 items and had a total occurrence of 198. The three highest-frequency terms within this cluster were health care, personnel, risk factor, and information processing. Co-occurring terms included risk factors, health care personnel, health personnel, information, processing, methodology, public health, mental health care personnel, population research, quantitative study, and descriptive research.

Cluster 7 Health Behaviour (Orange). This cluster consisted of 21 items and had a total occurrence of 544. The highest frequency terms within this cluster were male, major clinical studies, and cross-sectional studies. Co-occurring terms included male, major clinical study, cross-sectional studies, gender, aged 80 and over, mental illness, health behaviour, health status, reading, and age.

link