Enabling middle‐aged and older adults accessing community services to reduce social isolation: Community Connectors

Giebel, Clarissa; Hassan, Shaima; Harvey, Gina; Devitt, Conal; Harper, Lesley; Simmill‐Binning, Cheryl

doi:10.1111/hsc.13228

Cited by 23 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Of the six studies that were published during or after the COVID-19 pandemic, four of them [49,50,57,60] collected data between 2017 and 2018. The remaining two studies [45,48] did not specify the year of data collection, therefore we assumed that data were collected beforehand.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

Liebmann

Pitman

Hsueh

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

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Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I've got more confidence to do things. " (Gender not specified, 44-84 years) [50] Moreover, active engagement with the group provided motivation to attend the activities, which in turn engendered a sense of wellbeing:…”

Section: Subtheme 3: Improved Self-confidence and Self-worthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

Liebmann

Pitman

Hsueh

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…I've got more con dence to do things." (Gender not speci ed, 44-84 years) [47] Moreover, active engagement with the group provided motivation to attend the activities, which in turn engendered a sense of wellbeing:…”

Section: Subtheme 2: Sense Of Belonging To the Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…‡ N = NoOf the six studies that were published during or after the COVID-19 pandemic, four of them [46][47][55][59] collected data between 2017 and 2018. The remaining two studies[42]…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta- synthesis of the literature

Liebmann

Pitman

Hsueh

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social prescribing is a means of linking individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 grey literature databases in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants.

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“…Hence, recent work has focused on interventions to alleviate loneliness in older adults. These studies have recognized the impact of various types of interventions including community support programs (Giebel et al, 2020), mindfulness-based stress reduction (Creswell et al, 2012), religious activities (Milad and Asma, 2018), pet therapy (Banks and Banks, 2002), peer support groups (Lai et al, 2020), and social interventions (Gardiner et al, 2018). However, studies may fail to address the unique psychosocial and socio-structural stressors associated with caregiving (e.g., compassion fatigue and burnout, changing dynamic of the caregiver-care recipient relationship, difficulties with time management) (Harris et al, 2011;Lynch et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interventions to reduce loneliness in caregivers: An integrative review of the literature

Velloze

Jester

Jeste

2022

Psychiatry Research

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Enabling middle‐aged and older adults accessing community services to reduce social isolation: Community Connectors

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 23 publications

References 26 publications

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta- synthesis of the literature

Interventions to reduce loneliness in caregivers: An integrative review of the literature

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