A Longitudinal Analysis of Loneliness Among Older People in Great Britain

Abstract

Longitudinal studies of loneliness among older people are comparatively rare. At 8 years after the initial survey in 1999-2000, we followed up on the 999 people aged 65+ years who were living in the community in the United Kingdom. We found that 583 participants were still alive, and 287 (58%) participated in the follow-up survey. The overall prevalence of loneliness at both time points was very similar, with 9% reporting severe loneliness; 30% reporting that they were sometimes lonely, and 61% reporting that they were never lonely. We developed a 12-category typology to describe changes in loneliness across the follow-up period and report that 60% of participants had a stable loneliness rating, with 40-50% rating themselves as never lonely, and 20-25% rating themselves as persistently lonely; 25% demonstrated decreased loneliness, and approximately 15% demonstrated worse loneliness. Changes in loneliness were linked with changes in marital status, living arrangements, social networks, and physical health. Importantly improvements in physical health and improved social relationships were linked to reduced levels of loneliness. This result suggests that strategies to combat loneliness are not confined to the arena of social interventions such as befriending services, which aim to build and support social embeddedness, but may also result from the treatment of chronic and long-term health conditions.

Responses to social and environmental stress are attenuated by strong male bonds in wild macaques

“…Among captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) social stressors led to increased susceptibility to disease in individuals with a personality characterized by low sociability compared with individuals with high sociability (75). Together with the finding that in humans several negative health consequences and increased mortality are related to increased feelings of loneliness (76,77), these results suggest that the effect of sociality (formation of strong bonds) on responsiveness to stressors may be mediated by temperament. This is echoed in cercopithecine females where individuals with a loner personality (low rate of social interactions) had higher physiological stress levels (fGCMs) than those exhibiting more highly social personalities while controlling for dominance rank (46).…”

El sentimiento de soledad en la vejez

“…Es así, según Dykstra (1995), porque están más acostumbradas a la independencia y han desarrollado estrategias eficaces para satisfacer sus necesidades emocionales y sociales. Para quienes han estado casadas previamente, ahora bien, es fundamental el tiempo que haya transcurrido desde que acabó su matrimonio dado que la prevalencia de la soledad es menor si llevan mucho de viudas o divorciadas que si su etapa matrimonial es reciente (Victor y Bowling 2012;Peters y Liefbroer 1997). El estudio longitudinal que realizan Utz et al (2014) revela que, con independencia del grado en que este sentimiento afecte a las personas en el momento de enviudar, su incidencia decrece con el paso del tiempo.…”

“…Desde una ópti-https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2018.76.1.16.164 ca cualitativa, sus resultados ayudan a comprender lo que encuentran todas las encuestas realizadas: la fuerte vinculación existente entre la viudedad y el sentimiento de soledad (Victor y Bowling 2012;Aartsen y Jylhä 2011;Dykstra, van Tilburg y De Jong Gierveld 2005). Sin embargo, la hemos descubierto, no tanto entre quienes perdieron al cónyuge en una etapa prematura de su curso vital sino, mucho más, entre quienes enviudan en la vejez.…”

Mobility, Transport and Social Inclusion: Lessons from History

“…Those unable to participate fully in a highly mobile twenty-first century society are likely to experience both absolute and relative transport-related social exclusion, leading to reduced employment and social opportunities and, potentially, to ill-health due to feelings of frustration and isolation. While health effects of isolation have been most extensively studied among older people (Luo, Hawkley, Waite, & Cacioppo, 2012;Victor & Bowling, 2012), transport-related social exclusion can cause problems for any age group. Such sentiments were expressed by a number of interview respondents in a recent study of everyday travel in four English towns.…”