This paper reports a study of the risk factors for social and emotional loneliness among older people in Ireland. Using the ' Social and Emotional Scale for Adults ', the social and emotional dimensions of loneliness were measured. Emotional loneliness was conceptualised as having elements of both family loneliness and romantic loneliness. The data were collected through a national telephone survey of loneliness in older people conducted in 2004 that completed interviews with 683 people aged 65 or more years. It was found that levels of social and family loneliness were low, but that romantic loneliness was relatively high. Predictors for social loneliness were identified as greater age, poorer health, living in a rural area, and lack of contact with friends. Living in a rural setting, gender (male), having a lower income, being widowed, no access to transport, infrequent contact with children and relatives and caring for a spouse or relative at home were significant predictors of family loneliness. Romantic loneliness was predicted by marital status, in particular being widowed. Never having married or being divorced or separated were also significant predictors for romantic loneliness. The findings indicate that loneliness for older people is variable, multi-dimensional and experienced differently according to life events, with, for example, the death of a partner being followed by the experience of emotional loneliness, or the loss of friends or declining health leading to social loneliness.KEY WORDS -social loneliness, emotional loneliness, Republic of Ireland.

Publication informationNursing inquiry, 12 (2) ABSTRACTThis article is based on a discourse analysis of the complete nursing records of 45 patients and concerns the modes of rationality that mediated text-based accounts relating to patient care that nurses recorded. The analysis draws on the work of the critical theorist, Jürgen Habermas, who conceptualised rationality in the context of modernity according to two types: purposive rationality based on an instrumental logic and value rationality based on ethical considerations and moral reasoning. Our analysis revealed that purposive rationality dominated the content of nursing documentation, as evidenced by a particularly biocentric and modernist construction of the workings of the body within the texts. There was little reference in the documentation to central themes of contemporary nursing discourses, such as notions of partnership, autonomy, and self-determination which are associated with value rationality. Drawing on Habermas, we argue that this nursing documentation 2 depicted the colonisation of the socio-cultural lifeworld by the bio-technocratic system. Where nurses recorded disagreements that patients had with medical regimes, the central struggle inherent in the project of modernity became transparent -the tension between the rational and instrumental control of people through scientific regulation and the autonomy of the subject. The article concludes by problematising communicative action within the context of nursing practice.

Electromyographic monitoring of the RLN using a postcricoid surface electrode provides a safe, simple, and effective method for intraoperative monitoring during thyroid or parathyroid surgery. Further, evoked electromyography confirms RLN integrity at the conclusion of surgery.

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