Research on cyberbullying and suicide: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Suicide is a global mental health problem. In recent years, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and suicides have increased in children and adolescents. In this population, cyberbullying is a public health problem that has grown along the increase in use of devices with internet access. Cybervictimization is related to negative health effects, even including suicidal ideation or suicide in cyberbullied individuals. This study is the first bibliometric analysis on scientific literature related to cyberbullying and suicide based on the traditional laws of bibliometrics. The aim was to generate a global overview of the research related to this object of study. We analysed 242 documents published in journals indexed in the Web of Science, examining the trend followed by annual publications, identifying the prolific (most productive) and prominent (prolific co-authors with one or more papers between most cited papers) co-authors, leading countries and journals, the most cited documents and the most used author keywords. Annual publications followed an exponential growth trend (R2 = 89.2%), meaning that there is a great interest in the scientific community for this study object. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Psychiatry Research were the journals with most document published. Baiden, P. (prolific), Kowalski, R. (most cited), Hinjuja, S. and Patchin, J. (prominents) were the most highlighted co-authors, reference authors on the subject. Most scientific output originated in the USA. Five thematic lines were identified among the author keywords. The results of this research show the growing interest of the scientific community in this topic, along with useful information for researchers and publishers, identifying relevant co-authors, journals interested in the topic and emerging lines of research, highlighting self-harm, cyber-victimisation, suicide risks and suicidal behaviours as the most recent thematic lines.