It Hurts To Be Lonely! Loneliness and Positive Mental Wellbeing in Australian Rural and Urban Adolescents

Houghton, Stephen; Hattie, John; Carroll, Annemaree; Baffour, Bernard

doi:10.1017/jgc.2016.1

Cited by 40 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…This scale has yielded good reliability for the overall scale and subscales (Cronbach alpha = 0.84). The use of the scale in the current study is further supported by established norms for Western Australian adolescents (67).…”

Section: Secondary Outcome Measuressupporting

confidence: 57%

KONTAKT© in Australian Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum: Protocol of a Randomized Control Trial

Afsharnejad

Falkmer

Black

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Background: Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience impairing challenges in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts. While social skills group training (SSGT) has shown moderate effects on various sociability outcomes in ASD, there is a need for (i) replication of effects in additional clinical and cultural contexts, (ii) designs which employ active control groups, (iii) calculation of health economic benefits, (iv) identification of the optimal training duration, and (v) measurement of individual goal and quality of life outcomes. Method/design: With the aim of investigating the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a SSGT, KONTAKT©, a two-armed randomized control trial with adolescents aged 12 to17 years (N=90) with ASD and an intelligence quotient (IQ) of over 70 will be undertaken. Following stratification for centre and gender, participants will be randomly assigned to either KONTAKT© or to an active control group, a group-based cooking program. Participants will attend both programs in groups of 6 to 8 adolescents, over 16 one and a half hour sessions. The primary outcome examined is adolescent self-rated achievement of personally meaningful social goals as assessed via Goal Attainment Scaling during an interview with a blinded clinician. Secondary outcomes include adolescent self-reported interpersonal efficacy, quality of life, social anxiety, and loneliness, face emotion recognition performance and associated gaze behaviour, and parent proxy reports of autistic traits, quality of life, social functioning, emotion recognition and expression. Cost-effectiveness will be investigated in relation to direct and indirect societal and health care costs. Discussion: The primary outcomes of this study will be evidenced in the anticipated achievement of adolescents' personally meaningful social goals following participation in KONTAKT© as compared to the active control group. This design will enable rigours evaluation of the efficacy of KONTAKT©, exercising control over the possibly confounding effect of exposure to a social context of peers with a diagnosis of ASD.

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Section: Secondary Outcome Measuressupporting

confidence: 57%

KONTAKT© in Australian Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum: Protocol of a Randomized Control Trial

Afsharnejad

Falkmer

Black

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…51 Positive associations were also reported between social isolation/loneliness and suicidal ideation, 20,21,34 selfharm, 34 and eating disorder risk behavior. 34 Negative associations were reported between social isolation/loneliness and well-being 26,27 and mental health. 50 Eighteen studies followed participants over time (Table 3).…”

Section: Impact Of Loneliness On Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Systematic Review: The Impact of Social Isolation and Loneliness on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in the Context of COVID-19

Loades

Chatburn

Higson-Sweeney

et al. 2020

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psych

2,054

1,773

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Objective: Disease containment of COVID-19 has necessitated widespread social isolation. We aimed to establish what is known about how loneliness and disease containment measures impact on the mental health in children and adolescents. Method: For this rapid review, we searched MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and Web of Science for articles published between January 1, 1946, and March 29, 2020. Of the articles, 20% were double screened using predefined criteria, and 20% of data was double extracted for quality assurance. Results: A total of 83 articles (80 studies) met inclusion criteria. Of these, 63 studies reported on the impact of social isolation and loneliness on the mental health of previously healthy children and adolescents (n ¼ 51,576; mean age 15.3 years). In all, 61 studies were observational, 18 were longitudinal, and 43 were cross-sectional studies assessing self-reported loneliness in healthy children and adolescents. One of these studies was a retrospective investigation after a pandemic. Two studies evaluated interventions. Studies had a high risk of bias, although longitudinal studies were of better methodological quality. Social isolation and loneliness increased the risk of depression, and possibly anxiety at the time at which loneliness was measured and between 0.25 and 9 years later. Duration of loneliness was more strongly correlated with mental health symptoms than intensity of loneliness. Conclusion: Children and adolescents are probably more likely to experience high rates of depression and most likely anxiety during and after enforced isolation ends. This may increase as enforced isolation continues. Clinical services should offer preventive support and early intervention where possible and be prepared for an increase in mental health problems.

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“…Broadly, it includes domains of social integration, social acceptance, social contribution, social actualisation, and social coherence, which have been described elsewhere (Keyes, 1998). While some research has investigated the conceptual overlap between student social wellbeing and sense of community and participation in university community (Cicognani et al, 2008), it is often overlooked in university student mental health research in favour of isolation and loneliness (Houghton, Hattie, Carroll, Wood, & Baffour, 2016). Social wellbeing may be particularly relevant for international students who may be least likely to participate in the university community and report higher levels of loneliness and isolation (Alsahafi & Shin, 2016;Macionis, Walters, & Kwok, 2018).…”

Section: Mental Wellbeing and Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Make it Measurable: Assessing Psychological Distress, Wellbeing and Resilience at Scale in Higher Education

Agteren¹,

Woodyatt²,

Iasiello³

et al. 2019

SUCCESS

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There is an ever-increasing focus on the importance of addressing the mental health of students across the higher education sector. Measuring psychological distress or symptoms of common mental disorders as a proxy for mental health does however provide a limited picture of someone’s mental health status. There is a need to comprehensively measure mental health via outcomes of psychological distress combined with “positive” and “adaptive” states of mental health such as mental wellbeing and resilience. This paper describes a study of 905 students in which an online mental health and wellbeing platform was used to measure the mental health of students, all the while providing real-time individual reports to each individual student. The data provides evidence of high levels of psychological distress (i.e. anxiety) and low levels of mental wellbeing and resilience in students, relative to population norms, with merely 18.6% of students demonstrating optimal scores on all outcomes. Contrary to predictions we found no evidence of poorer wellbeing amongst international students when compared to domestic students. The results indicate that complimenting measurement of distress with measurement of positive and adaptive states can more comprehensively capture the precarious mental status of our tertiary students. Providing this measurement in a scalable and targeted way provides universities and its students the opportunity to provide and use mental health interventions based on the needs of particular cohorts of students, moving beyond resource-intense but intermittent or untargeted approaches to intervention.

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It Hurts To Be Lonely! Loneliness and Positive Mental Wellbeing in Australian Rural and Urban Adolescents

Cited by 40 publications

References 66 publications

KONTAKT© in Australian Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum: Protocol of a Randomized Control Trial

KONTAKT© in Australian Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum: Protocol of a Randomized Control Trial

Rapid Systematic Review: The Impact of Social Isolation and Loneliness on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in the Context of COVID-19

Make it Measurable: Assessing Psychological Distress, Wellbeing and Resilience at Scale in Higher Education

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