The current study aimed at investigating the contribution of researchers in the Arab region to the field of mental health and well-being of university students using bibliometric tools.
Relevant literature was obtained from the Scopus database for the period from 2001–2020. Examples of keywords used in the query included “college student”, “university student”, and undergraduate student” combined with keywords such as wellbeing, wellness, suicide, and anxiety. No language restriction was used. Only research articles were considered. The search query was validated. Bibliometric indicators and mappings such as active countries, institutions, authors, highly cited documents, and the most frequently encountered topics were identified and discussed to shed light on research gaps in the Arab region. Research gaps were also identified. The analysis was carried out on February 12, 2021.
The search query returned 309 research articles published by authors from 17 different Arab countries. Less than one-third (n = 97, 31.4%) of the retrieved articles were carried out in collaboration with authors from 39 non-Arab countries, mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States. The overall contribution of researchers from the Arab region to global research in the field was 5.6%. In total, 1212 authors from 791 different institutions participated in publishing the retrieved research articles. At the country level, Saudi Arabia (n = 125, 40.5%) ranked first, followed by Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. At the institutional level, The University of Jordan (n = 25, 8.1%) ranked first, followed by King Saud University, and Kuwait University. The retrieved articles included 132 (42.7%) articles on stress/distress, 95 (30.7%) on anxiety, 61 (19.7%) on depression. Knowledge gaps on suicide, eating disorders, substance use, and happiness were identified. The retrieved articles appeared in 193 different journals and approximately two-thirds of the active journal were in general medicine, public health, and education.
The contribution of researchers in the Arab region to the field showed a noticeable increase with time. However, important research gaps were identified. The contribution was confined to authors from a limited number of Arab countries. Funding and international research collaboration for the mental health and well-being of students need to be strengthened.
The Arab youth (aged 15–24 years) constitutes approximately 100 million of the total population of the 22 Arab countries (423 million) [1]. In the past three decades, there has been a tremendous change in the number and type of higher education institutions in the Arab region to meet the demands of increasing numbers of university students [2]. University students in the Arab region represent a sizable number of young population that requires special policies in education, employment, and health. Achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires investment in the health of university students to ensure future healthy adult generations.
Mental health is an important component of physical health and is defined as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” [3]. In 2013, all Member States of the World Health Assembly approved and adopted the “Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan for 2013–2020” to promote mental health nationally and globally [4]. University students in the Arab region are exposed to different types of academic and non-academic stressors that might be different from their peers in Europe, North America, and other world regions [5,6,7]. The Arab region has witnessed major events in the past three decades such as the Iraqi war, Arab Spring protests, the political unrest in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, and Tunisia, the massive numbers of refugees, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the diplomatic crisis in the Arab Gulf, the violent Islamic groups, and finally the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students in the Arab region suffer many life pressures that are unique to the Arab region. For example, in most Arab countries there is a lack of governmental and non-governmental bodies to support student loans with no or minimum financial interest [8, 9]. Students in the Arab region are also pressured by mass unemployment, minimum decent job opportunities, and an uncertain future [10]. Family income in most Arab countries is usually low which increases the pressure on young adults to succeed academically to save money for their large families [11, 12]. The vast growth of technology and its use in academic life put further psychological pressures on students with limited income. In some Arab countries, universities are located in major cities which creates another psychological pressure on students from the suburbs and villages due to lack of efficient transportation and decent on-campus housing [13]. Finally, the stress of war, political instability, poor economy, uncertain future, and sometimes the lack of democracy are major contributing factors to mental health problems among university/college students in the Arab region [10, 14, 15]. Globalization has influenced the young people generation in the Arab region in a way that made some of the hopeless young people travel through the sea looking for a better and safer life. Students in the Arab region can easily compare the lifestyle and life opportunities of students in other parts of the world with their living conditions [16, 17]. For example, in Arab countries, politics, religion, and culture impose a lot of constraints on students’ behavior in contrast to those in developed countries who have a larger margin of democracy and freedom including gender equality [18, 19]. For all the reasons mentioned above, the mental health status and well-being of university students in the Arab region deserve special attention and investigation.
Assessing research publications on mental health and well-being of university students in the Arab region is the first initial step in changing the future health of young generations. At the global level, a study was recently published and assessed the worldwide research publications on mental health and well-being of university students [20]. However, none was carried out at the Arab regional level. Based on the information presented above, the current study was a bibliometric analysis carried out to achieve the following objectives:
Determine the volume and growth of research publications on mental health and well-being of university students in the Arab region and compare it with global research in the same field.
Determine the hot spots and gaps in research on mental health and well-being of university students in the Arab region.
Determine the most active countries, institutions, and authors involved in this field at the regional level.
Achieving the above-mentioned objectives will add up to the existing literature on Arab youth and will enrich the field of mental health.
The current study, including the analysis, was carried out in February 2021. The author relied on the Scopus database to retrieve relevant documents because (1) Scopus is available to the author through the “Research4life” initiative, (2) Scopus is the largest database available, (3) and it has indexed journals in the field of health, social sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences [21, 22]. Scopus has been previously used to carry out analysis and visualization of research publications in different health fields [23,24,25]. Despite that Scopus is one of the largest databases, it has certain drawbacks. In the Arab region, there are many general medical journals. Most medical journals in the Arab Gulf countries such as Annals of Saudi Medicine, Saudi Medical Journal, Medical Principles and Practice, Emirates Medical Journal, and Omani Medical Journal are indexed in Scopus and have a moderate impact factor. Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia have several Scopus-indexed medical journals such as Jordan Medical Journal, Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, New Iraqi Journal of Medicine, Tunisie Medicale, Journal Medical Libanais, and Egyptian Journal of Public Health. In the field of mental health, the Egyptian Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurosurgery and the Middle East Current Psychiatry journals are indexed in Scopus. Therefore, articles published in regional medical journals were mostly retrieved and analyzed and the number of missing data is expected to be insignificant.
The author utilized the keywords relevant to university students, mental health, and well-being present in the previously published bibliometric study [20]. These keywords included university or college or “higher education” or “tertiary education” or “post-secondary education” or “undergrad* student” or “grad∗ student” or “master’s student” or “doctoral student” or “Ph.D. student”. These keywords must be associated with the keyword “student” in the title of the article. Keywords related to mental health and well-being included: (“mental illness” or “mental disorder*” or “mental distress” or “psychological distress” or “psychopathology” or “depression” or “anxiety” or “stress” or “suicide” or “eating disorder*” or “substance use”) or (“well-being” or “wellbeing” or “wellness” or “life satisfaction” or “happiness” or “positive affect” or “purpose in life” or “personal growth” or “self-determination”). The search query included the list of all Arab countries in the country affiliation to limit the retrieved documents to those in which at least one author was from one of the Arab countries.
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