Spirituality & Social Work: A Bibliometric Analysis of SCOPUS Publications using VOSviewer

Abstract

Spirituality and social work have traditionally been associated with advancing social justice, moral principles, and human development. To advance the research and the practice, it is essential to look at the major players, trends, and theme advances in the social work profession. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis of the Scopus database was used to study global literature on social work and spirituality in the period between 1992 and 2025. The final analysis was done on 283 documents and the indicators of analysis included co-occurrence of keywords, co-authorship, citations, and bibliographic coupling. VOSviewer software version 1.6.20 was used to analyse data for visualising networks and research trends.

Among the 283 documents examined, 83.39% were original research papers, and most of them were published in English. The top contributor was the “United States”, followed by “Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.” "Spirituality" & "Social Work" were the most recurring keywords, and recent trends are centred on professional practice and social workers' roles. The key contributors were David R. Hodge and Edward R. Canda, with the most cited journals being “Social Work” and “The British Journal of Social Work”. Although increased research trends were reported, few collaborations between institutions and nations were seen, which meant a necessity for more robust global research networks. The bibliometric analysis in this study shows the growing importance and relevance of spirituality in social work practice, with major contributions from Western countries. Further, research in the field must aim to explore ideas and topics from different cultural settings, promoting international collaborations, interdisciplinary practice, and addressing emerging issues in the incorporation of spirituality in the social work profession. This will foster the expansion of the social work field, encouraging complete and inclusive social work intervention practice globally.