Rapid Growth and a Shift from Effectiveness to Mechanisms: A Bibliometric Analysis of Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Student Mental Health in Higher Education (2016–2026)

Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have become a prominent approach for addressing student mental health in higher education, yet the intellectual structure of this literature has not been systematically mapped. This study describes publication trends, productive contributors, collaboration patterns, and thematic structure of research on MBIs for university student mental health. A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 544 Scopus-indexed journal articles (2016-2026), analyzed descriptively and visualized through co-occurrence and co-authorship mapping in VOSviewer. Annual output increased fourfold, from 23 articles in 2016 to 98 in 2025, with 72.8% of the corpus published since 2021. The United States (189 articles) and China (95) dominate production, while Indonesia contributes 10 articles. Co-occurrence analysis of 71 author keywords yielded seven thematic clusters; the largest and most recent centres on psychological mechanisms and mediation-moderation models.  Overlay analysis suggests a shift in thematic emphasis, rather than a definitive reorientation of the field, from testing structured programmes towards examining mechanisms of change such as decentering and cognitive reappraisal. Collaboration is markedly fragmented: only 24.3% of articles involve more than one country, and the largest connected author community comprises seven researchers. The field is expanding rapidly in volume but has yet to consolidate into an integrated epistemic community, leaving room for new contributors, including Indonesian researchers, to shape its direction.