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Review
. 2021 Mar 8;23(3):e24870.
doi: 10.2196/24870.

Machine Learning for Mental Health in Social Media: Bibliometric Study

Jina Kim  1 , Daeun Lee  1 , Eunil Park  1
Affiliations
Review

Machine Learning for Mental Health in Social Media: Bibliometric Study

Jina Kim et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Social media platforms provide an easily accessible and time-saving communication approach for individuals with mental disorders compared to face-to-face meetings with medical providers. Recently, machine learning (ML)-based mental health exploration using large-scale social media data has attracted significant attention.

Objective: We aimed to provide a bibliometric analysis and discussion on research trends of ML for mental health in social media.

Methods: Publications addressing social media and ML in the field of mental health were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. We analyzed the publication distribution to measure productivity on sources, countries, institutions, authors, and research subjects, and visualized the trends in this field using a keyword co-occurrence network. The research methodologies of previous studies with high citations are also thoroughly described.

Results: We obtained a total of 565 relevant papers published from 2015 to 2020. In the last 5 years, the number of publications has demonstrated continuous growth with Lecture Notes in Computer Science and Journal of Medical Internet Research as the two most productive sources based on Scopus and Web of Science records. In addition, notable methodological approaches with data resources presented in high-ranking publications were investigated.

Conclusions: The results of this study highlight continuous growth in this research area. Moreover, we retrieved three main discussion points from a comprehensive overview of highly cited publications that provide new in-depth directions for both researchers and practitioners.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; machine learning; mental health; social media.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Representative data collection procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Publication count of top 10 research subjects.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Keyword co-occurrence network graph; the color map on the right side represents the degree centrality.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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