Mental Health among Doctors and Nurses

This bibliometric investigation provides an in-depth overview of how scholarship on the mental health of healthcare workers has evolved across a twenty-five-year period. Rather than merely summarizing publication counts or citation patterns, the description offers a broader narrative of how the field has transformed, the scholarly communities driving it, and the structural shifts that have shaped research priorities globally. By sourcing data exclusively from the Web of Science core indexes, the study ensures high-quality, peer-reviewed literature, enabling a rigorous examination of how academic attention to healthcare workers’ psychological wellbeing has grown in scope and complexity. The use of advanced mapping tools such as Biblioshiny, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace allows the analysis to uncover hidden intellectual structures—revealing clusters of frequently co-cited authors, thematic concentrations, and collaborative networks linking countries and institutions. These visualizations illustrate how conversations have expanded from stress, burnout, and occupational strain to more nuanced constructs such as compassion fatigue, resilience, trauma exposure, and post-pandemic recovery. They also highlight shifting research priorities around global health emergencies, public health reforms, and debates on workforce safety. Beyond identifying prolific authors and institutions, the study traces how academic influence has shifted geographically, revealing strong international engagement in mental health scholarship. Patterns of cross-border collaboration illuminate how scientific communities respond to shared challenges, especially during crisis periods when healthcare workers face unprecedented psychological demands. The narrative further emphasizes the role of leading journals in shaping discourse by providing platforms for empirical, conceptual, and intervention-based studies. This extended description positions the bibliometric results within a broader context: the growing recognition of mental health as a critical determinant of healthcare system performance. It underscores how sustained research growth mirrors increasing global concern for the wellbeing of professionals who form the backbone of medical care. The findings collectively suggest a field that is expanding, diversifying, and becoming more interconnected, offering valuable insights for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars seeking to advance supportive strategies for doctors, nurses, and allied health personnel.