Abstract

Despite the increasing number of studies on complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), no bibliometric study has been conducted to characterize the scientific literature on this specific topic. This study aims to describe the global research landscape on CPTSD through a bibliometric analysis of the literature. Articles on CPTSD were retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Analysis and visualization of selected documents were performed using MS Excel (v2406) and the Biblioshiny (v2.0) R package. The study included 299 articles. The results showed a continuous growth in the publication of articles on CPTSD from 2013 to 2023. The most prolific authors in this area were Mark Shevlin, Philip Hyland, Thanos Karatzias, and Marylene Cloitre, the latter being the most cited researcher. The "European Journal of Psychotraumatology" emerged as the leading journal for the publication of CPTSD research. Major themes in CPTSD research included dissociation, childhood trauma, adolescence, latent class analysis, and latent profile analysis, while emerging themes focused on adverse childhood experiences and child abuse. In addition, this study identified a robust international network of scholars, academic institutions, and countries engaged in the study of CPTSD. This bibliometric study provides a comprehensive overview of the ICD-11 CPTSD field of study, highlighting its evolving development, prominent researchers, associated study topics, and current network of research collaborations. These findings can serve as a valuable reference and guide for future researchers and studies in the field.