The DOI matches its Crossref record; 60 of the 60 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Trends and Developments in Mindfulness Research over 55 Years: A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications Indexed in Web of Science
Open accessAbstract
Objectives This study aimed to identify historical developments, active research areas, and emerging trends within scientific literature on mindfulness published so far, using bibliometric methods. We also aimed to identify prominent journals, authors, organizations, and countries in the field of mindfulness.Methods Articles or reviews which mention mindfulness in the title, abstract, or keywords were identified using the Web of Science. A descriptive summary of the literature was obtained from the Web of Science Analysis tool. Country collaboration, co-authorship, and keyword co-occurrence networks were visualized using VOSviewer. CiteSpace, which uses document co-citation analysis, was used to identify emerging trends and transient patterns in the literature.Results From 1966 to 2021, 16,581 publications on mindfulness were identified. There has been an exponential growth of publications since 2006. Almost half (47%) of the publications were in psychology and about one-fifth (20.8%) in psychiatry. The most prolific journal was Mindfulness (contributing 7% of all publications) and the most prolific author was Eric L. Garland. The vast majority of publications originated from Western countries but representation from Asian countries has increased. The most frequently co-occurring keywords were meditation, depression, stress, and anxiety. Co-citation analysis of the early period (1966-2015) revealed how scholarly work on spiritual themes has inspired early mindfulness research. Recent trends (2016-2021) revealed a rising interest in mechanisms and moderators, long-term meditation, neuroscientific studies, and smartphone/online delivery of interventions.Conclusions This comprehensive bibliometric study summarized and visualized 55 years of mindfulness research, revealing pivotal points, active research areas, and emerging trends.
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Citations
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Integrating Motivational Interviewing and Mindfulness-Based Care in Addiction Treatment
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How to Ruin Your Clients: Mindfulness as Cruelty
Wallis, G. (2025) · The politics of mental health and illness · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-02399-5_14
Terzioğlu, Z. A., & Bayköse, N. (2025) · International Journal Of Eurasia Social Sciences · doi:10.70736/ijoess.2187
“The literature contains numerous bibliometric analyses on mindfulness across various disciplines (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021; Bunjak et al., 2022; Ferreira & Demarzo, 2024; Sabé et al.,2025).”
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Unraveling mindfulness for individuals: a comprehensive review of conceptual dimensions
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A Bibliometric Analysis of Articles on Fiscal Transparency
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“The availability of citation data makes WoS data useful for bibliometric analyses, including co - citation analysis (Baminiwatta and Solangaarachchi, 2021 , p. 2100).”
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Metres, A., & Nyhus, E. (2025) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-025-02741-2
“…has risen dramatically in the last two decades with 2808 publications in 2020, including randomized controlled clinical trials, which has driven an increase in its use in clinical practice (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021; Creswell, 2017; Van Dam et al., 2017; Whitfield et al., 2022).”
Navegar em marés digitais: atenção como eixo estratégico
Cirani, C. B. S., Ramos, H. R., & Ribeiro, I. (2025) · Revista Ibero-Americana de Estratégia · doi:10.5585/2025.30123
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“This scale was chosen because it allows for the quick and reliable measurement of mindfulness levels within the scope of the research and is widely used in the international literature (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021).”
Mindfulness of Pain: A Global Bibliometric Analysis from 2000 to 2024
Cai, Y.-Q., Peng, S., Bai, Q.-H., Wu, C.-S., Ma, L., Guan, C., & Zhou, G. (2026) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-026-02822-w
“However, while previous bibliometric studies on mind-fulness have explored its overall developmental trajectory (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021; Bunjak et al., 2022), or examined specific disease contexts such as diabetes (Jiang et al., 2024), no comprehensive analysis has yet focused…”
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Dōgen and the Boundaries of Secular Mindfulness
Miller, E. (2026) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-026-02852-4
“In less than three decades, the field has produced tens of thousands of publications and wide-spread dissemination through books, apps, and curricula (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021; Van Dam et al., 2018).”
Baguley, S. (2026) · Philosophy of Coaching An International Journal · doi:10.22316/poc/11.1.10
Varghese, A. M., & Alfonso, T. (2024) · Journal of Comparative Family Studies · doi:10.3138/jcfs.55.4.02
Hosseini, S. R., Ghanbari, N., Shamsaei, M., & Ghabel, E. K. (2026) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-026-02895-7
“Research on the neural mechanisms of mindfulness has grown significantly (Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021).”
Mindfulness in sports: a bibliometric analysis from 1995 to 2025
Chen, C. P., Hung, C.-S., Nien, J., Hsieh, W.-L., Chen, M., Brazaitis, M., Tran, T. T., & Chang, Y. (2026) · International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology · doi:10.1080/1612197x.2026.2687391 · Cited by 1
Levy, J., Dimidjian, S., & Segal, Z. V. (2026) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-026-02924-5
“In the ten years since, research on MBIs has continued to grow exponentially (e.g., Baminiwatta & Solangaarachchi, 2021), and the current review updates this work by examining the extent to which the field has addressed earlier recommendations and progressed towards realizing the clinical science…”
Singh, A. N. A., Cook, K., & Hill, B. D. (2026) · Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s40501-026-00393-0
“…co-citation analysis and citation burst detection algorithms, applied in the mindfulness bibliometric literature by Baminiwatta and Solangaarachchi [20] over a 55-year dataset, would allow the present study’s thematic clusters to be validated, temporally resolved, and connected to specific…”
InfluentialMiswanto, M., Pramudia, M. Y. F., Aziz, I. N., & Syahbudin, A. (2026) · Al-Jadwa Jurnal Studi Islam · doi:10.38073/aljadwa.4607
Mindfulness Practices in Children and Adolescents
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“VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and the R package bibliometrix have been widely used in biomedical bibliometric studies to construct collaboration networks, analyze key-word co-occurrence and co-citation relationships, identify emerging topics, and visualize changes in research frontiers [22,23].”
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Effects of Mindfulness and Psychological Capital on Engagement: Analysis from Healthcare
Kumprang, K., Speece, M. W., & Suriyankietkaew, S. (2026) · Administrative Sciences · doi:10.3390/admsci16100469
Trait mindfulness and competitive-race flow in swimmers: the mediating role of attentional control
Luo, L., & Xu, B. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1938433
Práticas contemplativas na Pós-Graduação em saúde
Castellanos, M. E. P., Coelho, S. S., Pereira, M. E., & de Barros, N. F. (2026) · Revista Brasileira de Pós-Graduação · doi:10.21713/rbpg.v20i41.2433
Tuts, N., Gillebert, C. R., & Heugten, C. M. V. (2026) · Mindfulness · doi:10.1007/s12671-026-03003-5
Metadata
- Authors
- Baminiwatta, A., & Solangaarachchi, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Kelaniya (LK)
- Corresponding author
- Baminiwatta, Anuradha
- Venue
- Mindfulness
- Published
- 2021-07-16
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 2099-2116
- ISSN
- 1868-8527 (ISSN-L)
- 1868-8535
- PMC
- PMC8282773
- OpenAlex
- W3185236960
- Cited by
- 232
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 64 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 5.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Mindfulness (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Keywords
- mindfulness research, research trends, meditation, depression, stress, anxiety, smartphone-based intervention, online intervention, spiritual themes, publication growth, co-authorship networks, co-citation analysis
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