Frequently Asked Questions

The analysis found that community psychiatry publications were relatively stable from 2015 to 2019, ranging from 25 to 41 papers per year, then increased to 55 in 2020 and peaked at 64 publications in 2022. The authors noted a gradual dip after 2022. They also cautioned that publication counts reflect indexing and publication dynamics as well as underlying research activity.

A total of 447 publications on community psychiatry were identified in the Scopus database for 2015 to 2025. The search was limited to English-language records and required the exact phrase “community psychiatry” to appear in the title, abstract, or author keywords, followed by screening for substantive relevance to community-based psychiatric services, models, or interventions.

Research articles made up most of the literature, accounting for 62% of the dataset (n = 277). The next largest categories were book chapters at 13% (n = 58) and review papers at 10.1% (n = 45). Smaller categories included letters at 5.8% (n = 26), editorials at 4.0% (n = 18), notes at 2.5% (n = 11), books at 2.5% (n = 11), and conference papers at 0.2% (n = 1).

Academic Psychiatry published the most community psychiatry papers, with 10 publications. The next most active journals were the Asian Journal of Psychiatry with 7 and BJPsych International with 5. Other journals in the top 10 included Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Annales Medico-Psychologiques, and Australasian Psychiatry with 3 each, and Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, and BMC Health Services Research with 2 each.

The most productive author in this dataset was H.L. McQuistion with 8 publications, followed by J.M. Feldman and P.S. Runnels with 7 each. Several authors had 6 publications, including D.K. Bhugra, B.A.M. Cullen, J.M. Ranz, W.E. Sowers, and A. Ventriglio.

Among institutions, Harvard Medical School contributed the most papers with 14, followed by NYU Grossman School of Medicine with 12 and Massachusetts General Hospital with 11. Because Scopus affiliation fields can include multiple institutions per paper, these counts reflect all indexed affiliations rather than only first-author institutions.

The thematic analysis suggested 4 broad, overlapping areas: community psychiatry’s response to COVID-19, technology-enabled psychiatric care, recovery-oriented service models, and community engagement strategies. The authors interpreted these themes as indicating a field increasingly focused on access, resilience, and sustainability of mental health services through community-based platforms and partnerships. They also noted that thematic mapping identifies patterns in the retrieved literature and does not establish causality or prove the effectiveness of specific service models.

The most-cited publication was Psychiatry of Pandemics: A Mental Health Response to Infection Outbreak, published in 2019, with 186 citations. It was followed by “Conduct Problems Trajectories and Psychosocial Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” published in 2018, with 146 citations, and “Mental Health in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Challenges and the Way Forward,” published in 2021, with 95 citations.

The study defined community psychiatry as psychiatric practices and services that are primarily delivered in and oriented toward the community rather than long-term institutional settings. This included models emphasizing deinstitutionalization, accessibility, continuity of care, recovery-oriented and person-centered approaches, family and community engagement, and social inclusion. The authors gave examples such as supported housing, community mental health centers, assertive community treatment, and community-based crisis and rehabilitation services.

The authors searched the Scopus database for English-language publications from 2015 to 2025 using the query TITLE-ABS-KEY (“community psychiatry”). They then screened titles and abstracts to exclude records that mentioned community psychiatry only tangentially and retained publications that substantively addressed community-based psychiatric services, models, or interventions.

They analyzed publication trends, article types, leading authors, journals, institutions, and highly cited papers, and used VOSviewer to map coauthorship, institutional collaboration, and keyword co-occurrence patterns. Themes were derived from frequent and co-occurring keywords and terms in titles and abstracts and then grouped through iterative author discussions.

The main limitations were that the dataset included only English-language, Scopus-indexed publications and required the exact phrase “community psychiatry,” so relevant studies in other languages, other databases, or under different terms may have been missed. The authors specifically noted likely underrepresentation of non-Western countries, especially the Global South and Africa, and said this should not be interpreted as proof of low research activity in those regions.

They also cautioned that bibliometric analyses map visibility rather than effectiveness, and that Scopus affiliation metadata can include multiple institutions and countries per record and does not consistently capture community-level characteristics such as rural versus urban focus.

The findings can help clinicians and service leaders identify which areas are most visible in the indexed literature and where local quality-improvement, training, or service-development efforts may align with current research trends. In this dataset, the most emphasized areas were COVID-19 service responses, technology-enabled care, recovery-oriented services, and community engagement.

The authors also cautioned that citation prominence and publication visibility should not be treated as evidence that a model is clinically superior. They suggest using bibliometric findings to identify research gaps and underdocumented settings or populations, while recognizing the constraints of language, indexing, and search terminology.