Scientometric and Knowledge Mapping of Therapeutic Approaches in Depression Research

Abstract

Purpose: Depressive disorder is one of the global mental health challenges that reduces the quality of life of individuals. This disorder has economic and social consequences for communities and families. It increases healthcare costs in communities, and it provides a basis for emotional problems in families. Due to the importance of this issue, it is necessary to pay special attention to this disease, because depressed individuals have emotional, cognitive, and physical symptoms that significantly disrupt the individual's life. Also, given that researchers have identified new subgroups of depression, there is a need to consider personalized treatment approaches based on individual symptoms and underlying causes for different profiles of this disease. In this regard, in recent years, most of the research published in the field of depression has focused on treatment approaches for this disorder. On the other hand, the diversity of treatment approaches is great, which has caused the scientific production in this field to be significantly dispersed. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a systematic review of research outputs in the field of depression treatment. To achieve this goal, bibliometric analysis can be used as one of the main tools in scientometrics to identify scientific structure. In this way, it is possible to identify high-frequency therapeutic and complementary treatment approaches based on the keywords used in scientific productions, to determine the activities of researchers and their research interests, and to examine the overall geographical distribution of publications worldwide. Therefore, the present study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of research outputs in the field of depression treatment.Methodology: The present study was conducted using scientometric techniques and documentary methods. The research corpus includes all publications related to depression treatment indexed in the Web of Science database from 1970 to 2025. To extract data, relevant keywords were first identified through the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus, including: ("Depression" OR "Depressive Disorders" OR "Major Depressive Disorder" OR "Clinical Depression" OR "Involutional Depression" OR "Involutional Melancholia" OR "Involutional Psychoses" OR "Involutional Paraphrenias" OR "Depressive Neuroses" OR "Endogenous Depressions" OR "Melancholia" OR "Unipolar Depression" OR "Depressive Syndromes" OR "Neurotic Depressions") AND ("Therapy" OR "Therapeutics" OR "Treatment"). Subsequently, a search was conducted in the Web of Science database, and data related to depression treatment were extracted in plain text format. BibExcel and VOSviewer software were employed to analyze the research questions. BibExcel was used to process raw data and calculate frequencies based on its available options, while VOSviewer facilitated visualization and mapping.Findings: Cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and pharmacotherapy were among the most frequently used treatments. A cluster analysis focusing on treatment approaches identified seven distinct clusters: Cluster 1 (pharmacology), Cluster 2 (psychotherapy), Cluster 3 (neuromodulation and physical interventions), Cluster 4 (lifestyle and activity-based complementary therapies), Cluster 5 (general concepts of treatment and intervention design), Cluster 6 (technology-based complementary therapies), and Cluster 7 (complementary and traditional therapies). Additionally, the word pairs (major depressive disorder – electroconvulsive therapy), (major depressive disorder – cognitive behavioral therapy), (major depressive disorder – psychotherapy), and (major depressive disorder – transcranial magnetic stimulation) appeared frequently. The leading author in the field of depression treatment is Michael Tas from the University of Pennsylvania, and the United States is the top country in this research area. The United States and Canada had the highest number of co-authors.Conclusion: A variety of treatment approaches have been documented in scientific publications on depression treatment. However, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is more prevalent than other methods and appears to be the preferred first-line treatment for depression. Terms related to emerging treatments, such as ketamine and neuromodulation techniques, also appear frequently. Conversely, some treatment approaches, including mindfulness-based stress reduction, functional analytic psychotherapy, and attachment-based psychotherapy, are underrepresented. A review of leading researchers suggests that their prominence may be influenced by their organizational affiliations, as institutional focus on specific subject areas encourages publication in those fields. Additionally, a geographic disparity was observed, with high-income countries dominating research output due to greater funding capacity for depression treatment studies. Ultimately, the findings of this study can assist clinicians in making more informed decisions and help mental health planners develop targeted clinical strategies. Future research should also examine the comparative effectiveness of these interventions across different age groups and severity levels.