Half a Century of Research on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Scientometric Analysis

Abstract: We conducted a scientometric analysis to outline clinical research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our primary objective was to perform a broad-ranging scientometric analysis to evaluate key themes and trends over the past decades. Our secondary objective was to measure research network performance. We conducted a systematic search in the Web of Science Core Collection up to 15 August 2022 for publications on PTSD. We identified 42,170 publications published between 1945 and 2022. We used CiteSpace to retrieve the co-cited reference network (1978-2022) that presented significant modularity and mean silhouette scores, indicating highly credible clusters (Q = 0.915, S = 0.795). Four major trends of research were identified: ‘war veterans and refugees’, ‘treatment of PTSD/neuroimaging’, ‘evidence syntheses’, and ‘somatic symptoms of PTSD’. The largest cluster of research concerned evidence synthesis for genetic predisposition and environmental exposures leading to PTSD occurrence. Research on war-related trauma has shifted from battlefield-related in-person exposure trauma to drone operator trauma and is being out published by civilian-related trauma research, such as the ‘COVID-19’ pandemic impact, ‘postpartum’, and ‘grief disorder’. The focus on the most recent trends in the research revealed a burst in the ‘treatment of PTSD’ with the development of Mhealth, virtual reality, and psychedelic drugs. The collaboration networks reveal a central place for the USA research network, and although relatively isolated, a recent surge of publications from China was found. Compared to other psychiatric disorders, we found a lack of high-quality randomized controlled trials for pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments. These results can inform funding agencies and future research.