Social Intervention and the Elderly:A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

A randomized controlled trial was set up in 1985 to test the effect of social intervention over 3 years among elderly people, aged 75 and above, living alone. The sampling frame was the age/sex register of a large group practice of 12 general practitioners serving the town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, England, with a list size of approximately 32,000 patients. A total of 523 elderly people living alone in 1985 were identified, interviewed, and randomized into experimental and control groups. A lay worker offered the experimental group (n = 261) individual packages of support that aimed at enhanced social contacts. The outcome measures, approximately 3 years later in 1988, were mortality; changes in physical status; demand for medical, paramedical, social, and voluntary services; and changes in a number of subjective variables (morale, loneliness, and self-perceived health). No significant differences were found for any of the variables with the exception of self-perceived health status, where the experimental group showed significantly greater improvements than did the control group. More importantly, half the elderly in this sample declined several offers of help.

Social Contacts and Their Relationship to Loneliness among Aged People – A Population-Based Study

“…It is important to reach the emotional component and inner expectations at the same time. One intervention study aiming at relieving loneliness among older people actually showed that increasing the number of social contacts did not relieve inner feelings of loneliness [34] .…”

Outcomes of community‐based social service interventions in homebound elders

“…Importantly, no homebound clients were on anti-depressants, suggesting a potential important intervention. Interventions have been studied in this vulnerable population (Clarke et al, 1992;Tinetti et al, 1994;van Haastregt et al, 2000), however, few have targeted depressive symptoms specifically, rather than merely as a potential confounder of outcomes. Though there has been rapid growth of programs designed for the homebound (Clarfield and Bergman, 1991;Kellogg and Brickner, 2000), home health providers may not recognize depressive symptoms among homebound patients, resulting in lack of appropriate services (Brown et al, 2003).…”

A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Reduce Loneliness

“…The second criterion was that the intervention effect had to be measured and reported quantitatively to enable the calculation of effect size. Although twelve studies originally failed to meet this criterion (Andersson, 1985; Brown, Allen, Dwozan, Mercer, & Warren, 2004; Clarke, Clarke, & Jagger, 1992; Evans & Jaureguy, 1982; Evans, Smith, Werkhoven, Fox, & Pritzl, 1986; Jones, Hobbs, & Hockenbury, 1982; McLarnon & Kaloupek, 1988; Routasalo, Tilvis, Kautiainen, & Pitkala, 2009; Seepersad, 2005; Stewart, Reutter, Letourneau, & Makawarimba, 2009; van Kordelaar, Stevens, & Pleiter, 2004; van Rossum et al, 1993), attempts to recover quantitative data from the authors were successful in two cases (Evans, Smith, Werkhoven, Fox, & Pritzl, 1986; Seepersad, 2005). The third criterion was that each study had to report original data not reported in another paper to avoid inflating effect sizes.…”