When people are forced to flee war, persecution or violence, the psychological consequences can continue long after they reach safety. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has therefore become a major focus of refugee mental health research. But how has this field developed over time, who is producing the research, and which questions are receiving the most attention?
To answer these questions, Oussama Sabili and colleagues at Hassan II University of Casablanca and Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University mapped 25 years of Scopus-indexed research on PTSD among refugees. Their study, “Bibliometric analysis of research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among refugees indexed in Scopus: Trends and insights (2000–2025)”, was published in International Perspectives in Psychology. The team analysed 1,683 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2025, examining publication trends, countries, institutions, authors, collaboration networks and the terms researchers use to describe their work.
The findings reveal a field that has expanded rapidly and become more attentive to social and cultural context, while important inequalities remain in whose knowledge becomes visible. The analysis maps indexed academic publishing rather than every form of knowledge about refugee mental health, a distinction that is central to interpreting its results.
How researchers map a field of study
Rather than testing a new treatment or interviewing a group of refugees, bibliometric analysis examines the research literature itself. It uses publication records to identify patterns, including how many studies appear each year, which countries and institutions publish most often, who collaborates with whom, and which topics become more or less prominent over time. The researchers combined publication performance analysis with science-mapping techniques using VOSviewer. The aim was not to judge individual studies, but to understand the structure and evolution of the Scopus-indexed literature as a whole.
A field that has expanded rapidly
The number of Scopus-indexed articles on refugee PTSD rose substantially during the study period. The researchers identified 15 articles published in 2000, compared with a peak of 142 in 2021. Growth was relatively slow in the early 2000s, accelerated between 2007 and 2016, and became particularly rapid from 2017 onwards.
This expansion took place amid major humanitarian crises and rising global displacement. However, publication patterns alone cannot establish that any particular crisis caused the increase in research. They do show that refugee PTSD has become a much more visible topic in international academic publishing.
The field is also highly interdisciplinary. Medicine accounted for the largest share of subject classifications in the dataset, followed by psychology and the social sciences. Together, these three areas represented more than four-fifths of the classifications assigned by Scopus. This suggests that refugee PTSD is being examined not only as a clinical disorder, but also through psychological and social perspectives.
Who produces the research that becomes visible?
One of the clearest findings was the geographical concentration of the research mapped. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia together accounted for more than 63% of country-affiliated output in the dataset. Sweden was also among the more visible contributing countries.
This does not mean that these countries produce 63% of all knowledge about refugee PTSD. The study examined English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in Scopus. Nevertheless, the pattern matters because many countries hosting large refugee populations, particularly in low- and middle-income regions, were far less visible in the indexed research network.
The same pattern appeared at institutional level. Well-resourced universities and medical centres in Europe, North America and Australia were prominent hubs of publication and collaboration. These institutions often have stronger research infrastructure, funding opportunities and access to international publishing networks. Their visibility should not be mistaken for evidence that institutions in refugee-hosting regions have less valuable expertise.
The findings raise a broader question: does the geography of published research adequately reflect the geography of forced displacement?
Our findings suggest that understanding refugee mental health requires us to look beyond symptoms alone. We also need to ask whose knowledge is represented, which contexts are visible, and how refugees themselves can help shape the research agenda.
— Oussama Sabili
The questions researchers ask are changing
Keyword maps also revealed an important shift in how refugee mental health is studied.
Earlier research focused strongly on diagnosis, prevalence, symptoms and mental disorders. This work was essential for establishing the scale of PTSD and identifying the mental health needs of displaced populations. Over time, however, the vocabulary of the research broadened.
More recent publications increasingly include concepts such as resilience, social support, cultural adaptation, integration, emotion regulation and the social determinants of mental health. Community interventions and policy also appear more prominently in newer research.
This change matters because PTSD does not develop in isolation from a person’s environment. Refugees may face continuing stress after displacement, including uncertainty about legal status, discrimination, poverty, language barriers, limited access to services and difficulties rebuilding social networks. A growing focus on these factors moves the field beyond a narrow view of trauma as an individual clinical problem. It also connects refugee mental health research with wider discussions about social inclusion and access to support.
The newer research landscape points towards a more socio-ecological understanding of refugee mental health. This approach considers the interaction between psychological symptoms, relationships, communities and wider social conditions.
What the research maps cannot tell us
Bibliometric research can reveal patterns across thousands of publications, but it also has clear limitations.
Scopus does not contain every form of knowledge. The analysis excluded non-English publications, books, theses, policy documents, non-governmental organisation reports, grey literature and other community-based sources. These materials may contain important evidence from practitioners, local researchers and refugees themselves.
Citation counts also require cautious interpretation. A highly cited article is highly visible within academic publishing, but citations do not directly show whether a study improved services, influenced policy, used culturally appropriate methods or benefited refugee communities.
Similarly, a collaboration map can show which researchers publish together, but it cannot establish whether refugees helped decide the research questions, interpret findings or share authorship.
The maps should therefore be understood as maps of indexed academic visibility, not complete maps of refugee experience or knowledge.
From studying refugees to producing knowledge with them
The growth of refugee PTSD research is encouraging, particularly the increasing attention to resilience, social integration and the wider conditions that shape mental health. Yet producing more publications is not enough.
Future research needs broader participation from scholars and institutions in refugee-hosting regions. It should also take multilingual evidence, regional databases, practitioner knowledge and grey literature more seriously. Comparing multiple databases could help researchers understand how the choice of information source changes the picture of the field.
Most importantly, refugee communities should have a stronger role in shaping research itself. Participatory approaches can involve refugees not simply as study participants, but as collaborators who help identify priorities, interpret findings and develop responses that make sense in their social and cultural contexts.For a related example of digital approaches to mental-health support, see AI Empathy Reshaping Digital Therapy.
This is particularly important in trauma research, where decisions about what to measure and how to describe distress are closely linked to culture, language and lived experience.
Towards a more inclusive map of refugee mental health
The study shows that the academic literature on refugee PTSD has changed considerably over the past 25 years. The field has grown, international collaboration has expanded, and research has increasingly moved from a predominantly diagnostic focus towards resilience, emotion regulation, integration and social context.
At the same time, the map remains incomplete. Much of the most visible research is produced within high-income academic systems, while local, non-English, community-generated and refugee-led knowledge can remain outside major databases.
The next stage of refugee mental health research must involve more than producing additional studies. It should also ask whose knowledge is visible, whose questions are prioritised, and who has the opportunity to shape the evidence used to understand refugee mental health. A more complete evidence base will require meaningful collaboration with refugee communities, alongside greater recognition of research and practice from the places where displacement is experienced.
The authors therefore argue for a broader and more participatory approach. This could include comparing several bibliographic databases, taking regional and multilingual sources into account, and recognising practitioner reports and community-generated evidence. Most importantly, refugees should be involved as partners in setting research priorities and interpreting findings. Such participation can help ensure that future research reflects the social and cultural contexts in which trauma is experienced, rather than treating displaced people only as subjects of study.
Reference
Sabili, O., Sbai, K., Ajana, Y., Jardini, M., & Mrakna, A. (2026). Bibliometric analysis of research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among refugees indexed in Scopus: Trends and insights (2000–2025). International Perspectives in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1027/2157-3891/a000157
