Trends in complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment of common mental disorders: A bibliometric analysis of two decades.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the trend of scientific production in relation to the modalities of CAM adopted for the treatment of common mental disorders (CMD), and the evolution and distribution of relevant articles.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A bibliometric analysis of studies published between 2001 and 2020 was performed, extracted from the Scopus database, using the terms: integrative medicine, complementary therapy, common mental disorders, anxiety and depression, and synonyms. The relationship between the number of publications, and the years studied were analyzed using Pearson's correlation, followed by linear regression to estimate the number of articles along with the year. The VOSviewer software was used to analyze scientometric data. The study looked at countries with the highest number of publications and citations, co-authorships, most frequent keywords, and leading research organizations.

RESULTS

In the analysis of the two decades, we identified a high positive correlation between the number of publications and year (r = 0.945). In trend analysis, the linear regression equation predicted the growth of publications along with the year, with R = 0.8949 explaining most of the data variability. Spirituality was the most frequent term among the modalities. The concentration of publications and the number of citations were significantly higher in developed countries.

CONCLUSION

The rise in the number of publications in the past two decades on the application of CAM among individuals with CMD suggests a growing scientific interest in Integrative practices. These bibliometric indicators suggest that new studies are warranted, as well as improvements in public health policies.