Half a century of research on suicide: a scientometric analysis of trends and knowledge maps with insights into recent patterns

Suicide is a major public health issue and research in the field is numerous, but its fragmented state has made it quite impractical to summarise the body of research through systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We propose up to date scientometric methods (Bibliometrix R-package and CiteSpace) to assess how research on suicide has evolved over the past decades and identify future topics of interest based on emerging trends since 2020. We also measure research performance and relevance in terms of studies, countries, institutions, and journals. A comprehensive search for relevant terms in the titles, abstracts, and keywords of the Web of Science Core Collection was conducted in February 2024. Our study compiled 689,004 citations of 33,305 references published from 1966 to 2023 (28,579 original articles, 3288 reviews, 1047 editorials, and 238 early access articles). Three major research trends were identified: biology of suicide, mood disorder and suicide, a clinical and genetic framework of suicide. Most influential studies, countries, institutions, and journals were identified. Finally, the latest research trends were singled out, such as non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents, gaps in suicidology in low-and-middle income countries, machine learning and new pharmacological treatments. With this study, we aspire to facilitate the work of research groups striving to develop collaborations and we hope to provide useful information for grant applicants, funding agencies, and policymakers.