Social Isolation, Loneliness, and All-Cause Mortality in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease: A 10-Year Follow-up Study

Abstract

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Immediate Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on Physical Activity Levels in Spanish Adults

“…Overall as well as subgroup reductions of weekly PA might be explained for the lack of social support and the feelings of loneliness, which have been associated with lower levels of PA and poor health conditions in both younger and older adults [36,46,47]. In fact, a prolonged time of social isolation has been observed to associate with cardiovascular diseases, poor mental health, and to increase all-cause mortality [22,48]. Social isolation and feelings of loneliness are current issues that, in this particular situation of confinement due to COVID-19, might be exacerbated by the fact that physical human interaction has been constrained for a significant period.…”

Loneliness and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Both loneliness and social isolation have been associated with an increased risk for coronary artery disease-associated death, even in middle-aged adults without a prior history of myocardial infarction (Heffner et al, 2011;Steptoe et al, 2013). Furthermore, research has shown that both loneliness and social isolation are independent risk factors for higher all-cause mortality (Yu et al, 2020).…”

Loneliness and Risk for Cardiovascular Disease: Mechanisms and Future Directions

“…However, there have been mixed findings as to whether subjective feelings of loneliness or the objective construct of social isolation is more important for CVD. A 10-year follow-up study of Taiwanese adults with CVD found evidence for the role of social isolation (HR = 1.16; 95% CI = 1.07 to 1.27) but not loneliness (HR = 0.92; 95% CI = 0.80 to 1.06) with increased risk of all-cause mortality after accounting for both simultaneously and adjusting for other established risk factors [ 4 ]. Similar findings were reported using data from the Danish DenHeart study of 13,000 CVD patients, where living alone but not loneliness was associated with risk for cardiac events (myocardial infarction, stroke, ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation, and cardiac arrest) assessed from national registers in men (HR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.05 to 1.85) at 1-year follow-up [ 24 ].…”

“…Accumulating evidence suggests that psychosocial risk factors such as loneliness are significant contributors to a wide range of negative health outcomes, including early all-cause mortality [ 1 , 2 ], incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) [ 3 •], and all-cause mortality in patients with CVD [ 4 ]. There are several indications that loneliness, or the subjective distress resulting from a discrepancy between desired and perceived social relationships [ 5 ], is widespread.…”