Stress among Undergraduate Students: A Bibliometric Analysis and Systematic Mapping of Global Research Trends (2016–2026)

Abstract

Psychological stress among undergraduate students has become one of the most extensively explored topics in the social sciences as well as science, driven by growing concern over student mental health, academic pressure, and the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. The global scientific literature on stress among undergraduate students published between 2016 and 2026 is systematically and bibliometrically analyzed in this study. In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) recommendations (Page et al., 2021), a structured search was conducted in the Scopus database using the Boolean string TITLE-ABS-KEY(stress OR “psychological stress” OR “perceived stress”) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(undergraduate OR “undergraduate student “ OR “college student “ OR “higher education student”), restricted to English-language journal articles in the Social Sciences subject area published in final form between 2016 and 2026. After meeting the eligibility requirements, 2,829 papers from 847 sources were kept for further examination. Co-citation and keyword co-occurrence networks were created using VOSviewer (van Eck & Waltman, 2010), and bibliometric indicators were calculated using the bibliometrix R-package and its Biblioshiny online interface (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017). The literature showed robust growth, with an annual growth rate of 6.81%. A life-cycle model suggests that the field has reached a maturity phase, with an estimated 61.8% progress toward saturation and a modelled peak of 348 publications annually around 2024. The United States topped scientific productivity and citation impact (18,635 citations), followed by China and the United Kingdom, while the University of California emerged as the most productive affiliate (59 papers).