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.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping
van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3 · Cited by 21,484
Centrality in social networks conceptual clarification
Freeman, L. C. (1978) · Social Networks · doi:10.1016/0378-8733(78)90021-7 · Cited by 17,062 · cited 1×
“The betweenness centrality (or centrality), based on concepts of Freeman (1978), measures the extent to which a node is in the middle of a path that connects other nodes in the network: High centrality values identify potentially revolutionary scientific publications (Chen, 2006).”
BackgroundThe benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822 · Cited by 13,448
Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy.bpg016 · Cited by 8,615 · cited 1×
“Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future Kabat-Zinn (2003) Clinical Psychology-Science And Practice 2653 (140) 3.”
BackgroundMindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy/bpg016 · Cited by 8,612
Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness
Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006) · Assessment · doi:10.1177/1073191105283504 · Cited by 7,511
Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition.
Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. V., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., et al. (2004) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph077 · Cited by 7,234
Chen, C. (2005) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.20317 · Cited by 6,820
Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008) · Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne · doi:10.1037/a0012801 · Cited by 6,664
Acceptance and commitment therapy: model, processes and outcomes
Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2005.06.006 · Cited by 6,587
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Pe, W. (1966). Mindfulness of sensation. Psychologia, 9(1–4), 195–198.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A common factors perspective on mindfulness-based interventions
Goldberg, S. B. (2022) · Nature Reviews Psychology · doi:10.1038/s44159-022-00090-8 · Cited by 75
Bunjak, A., Černe, M., & Schölly, E. L. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.792599 · Cited by 74
ZenVR: Design Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Learning System for Meditation
Feinberg, R. R., Lakshmi, U. K., Golino, M. J., & Arriaga, R. I. (2022) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3502035 · Cited by 59
“These examples demonstrate that meditation in VR can be as efective as in person, which has implications for remote learning particularly at a time when social distancing becomes necessary, as in the case of the recent COVID-19 crisis [7, 64].”
BackgroundDavies, J. N., Faschinger, A., Galante, J., & Dam, N. T. V. (2024) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-024-64562-y · Cited by 68
Study on positive psychology from 1999 to 2021: A bibliometric analysis
Wang, F., Guo, J., & Guoyu, Y. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1101157 · Cited by 80
“, 2021); mindfulness research (Baminiwatta and Solangaarachchi, 2021); COVID-19 (Chen, 2020; Yu et al.”
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
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
