Chapter 2. Mental Health Impacts during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in university students (2020–2023)

The rapid spread of COVID-19 transformed the pandemic into a global public health crisis due to its high mortality rate. However, its impact extends beyond physical health to include significant effects on mental health. Preventive measures like lockdowns have had psychological consequences for everyone, not just those who contracted the virus (Talavera Salas et al., 2021). Among students, the sudden shift to an unfamiliar reality, coupled with the demands of excessive academic workloads and the challenges of virtual classes, led to sleep disorders (Ramírez and Velazco, 2021). While the entire population is at risk of mental health issues, young people are particularly vulnerable, as they had to adapt not only to the pandemic's stressors and quarantine but also to the new online education model.

Considering that the analysis of publications is the best way to describe the advances and contributions of a group or an institution to scientific knowledge in a given discipline, a bibliometric study is prepared on the mental health effects during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in university students from 2020 to 2023.

To achieve the objective, a search of the topic was conducted in the Scopus database, using a time range between 2020 and 2023. The results were processed and analyzed based on predefined criteria. The analysis of results from the Scopus database was used to obtain graphs, and a network analysis among authors and keywords was performed using the Vosviewer program. The document is divided into four main sections: The first describes the origin and the theoretical framework, followed by the methodology used for the search, the bibliometric and network analysis findings, and finally, the discussion and conclusions