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NTU professor identified as most published researcher of COVID-19 mental health papers worldwide in 2020

An independent analysis has named NTU’s Dr Mark Griffiths as the researcher with the most published papers on the topic across the globe.

Mark Griffiths
Distinguished Professor Mark Griffiths

A bibliometric analysis looking at published papers on the impact of COVID-19 on mental health worldwide was published this month in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry.

The study listed NTU as a top 10 institution on this research topic and Distinguished Professor Mark Griffiths as the researcher with the most published papers.

All papers that had carried out empirical research on the mental health impact of the pandemic on individuals in 2020 were examined in the analysis, with a total of 680 papers published internationally across the year.

NTU published a total of 16 research papers on the topic in 2020 with an average citation number of 17.2, and all these papers were written by Dr Griffiths and his colleagues.

Dr Griffiths, Distinguished Professor in the School of Social Sciences said: "I was both surprised and pleased to be independently identified as the researcher who had published the most papers on the mental impact of COVID-19 in 2020. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global response was unlike any event previously experienced in living history and had a profound impact on the lives and health of people across the globe.

“Our work sought to explore how people reacted to this event and I'm delighted that many other researchers are citing our studies in many different COVID-19 fields concerning the psychological and mental impact of the pandemic.

“I never could have imagined back in 2019 that so much of my research in 2020 and 2021 would be on a topic that I - like everyone else - hadn't even heard of less than two years ago. However, the pandemic created an unprecedented opportunity for researchers, and I - like thousands of others - focussed my work on the current situation. For most of my long academic career, I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to engage with a range of research areas I have ended up moving into, and this is the latest of those lines of research."

Dr Griffiths has published a total of 80 papers on various mental health impacts of COVID-19 throughout 2020 and 2021.

The majority of his research focuses on the fear of COVID-19, which has also led to Dr Griffiths co-developing the ‘Fear of COVID-19 scale’.

This has quickly become one of his most cited papers ever, with almost 1500 citations on Google Scholar within 18 months of publication and translations into over 20 different languages.

Other research has focused on suicide and the general mental health impact - including depression, anxiety and stress - vaccination and preventative behaviours, and the impact of behavioural addictions including gaming addiction, internet addiction and gambling addiction.

Those with an institutional login can access the full analysis from the Asian Journal of Psychiatry.

Discover more about Distinguished Professor Mark Griffiths and his work, including digital gaming addiction.

Published on 22 September 2021
  • Category: Research; School of Social Sciences