Research and Public Interest in Mindfulness in the COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 Era: A Bibliometric and Google Trends Analysis

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health 2023-02, Vol.20 (5), p.3807
• Main Author: Kwon, Chan-Young
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Antidepressants; Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Bibliometrics; Big Data; Citation indexes; Cooperation; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Forecasts and trends; Humans; Mental depression; Mental health; Mindfulness; Pandemics; Popularity; Post traumatic stress disorder; Public concern; Public health; Public interest; Search Engine; Search strategies; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Statistical analysis; Stress (Psychology); Trends; Two dimensional analysis
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20053807

Public and research interest in mindfulness has been growing, and the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic seems to have accelerated this growth. This study was conducted to investigate the public and research interest in mindfulness in the context of COVID-19. The term 'Mindfulness' was searched in Google Trends, and data were collected from December 2004 to November 2022. The relationship between the relative search volume (RSV) of 'Mindfulness' and that of related topics was analyzed, and 'Top related topics and queries' for the search term 'Mindfulness' were investigated. For bibliometric analysis, a search was conducted in the Web of Science database. Keyword co-occurrence analysis was conducted, and a two-dimensional keyword map was constructed using VOSviewer software. Overall, the RSV of 'Mindfulness' increased slightly. The RSVs of 'Mindfulness' and 'Antidepressants' showed an overall significant positive correlation (r = 0.485) but a statistically significant negative correlation during the COVID-19 era (-0.470). Articles on mindfulness in the context of COVID-19 were closely related to depression, anxiety, stress, and mental health. Four clusters of articles were identified, including 'mindfulness', 'COVID-19', 'anxiety and depression', and 'mental health'. These findings may provide insights into potential areas of interest and identify ongoing trends in this field.