The Association between Loneliness and Health Related Quality of Life (HR-QoL) among Community-Dwelling Older Citizens

Tan, Siok Swan; Fierloos, Irene N.; Zhang, Xuxi; Koppelaar, Elin; Alhambra‐Borrás, Tamara; Rentoumis, Tasos; Gr, Williams; Rukavina, Tomislav; Staveren, Rob van; Garcés‐Ferrer, Jorge; Franse, Carmen Betsy; Raat, Hein

doi:10.3390/ijerph17020600

Cited by 46 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…One recent promising development is an analysis using both the De Jong Gierveld scale and the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey used in generating SF-6D scores. This study reported a significant inverse association between increasing loneliness in older people in five European countries and their physical and mental quality of life [61]. Further work could be undertaken to assess how these associations impact on utility weights used to calculate quality adjusted life years.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Modelling the Economic Impact of Reducing Loneliness in Community Dwelling Older People in England

McDaid

Park

2021

IJERPH

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Loneliness has been associated with poor mental health and wellbeing. In England, a 2018 national strategy on loneliness was published, and public health guidelines recommend participation in social activities. In the absence of existing economic evidence, we modelled the potential cost effectiveness of a service that connects lonely older people to social activities against no-intervention. A 5-year Markov model was constructed from a health and social care perspective. Parameters were drawn from the literature, with the intervention structure based on an existing loneliness alleviation programme implemented in several settings across England. Univariate and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were undertaken. The total expected cost per participant in the intervention group is £ 7131 compared to £ 6783 in the usual care group with 0.45 loneliness free years (LFY) gained. The incremental cost per LFY gained is £ 768; in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis the intervention is cost saving in 3.5% of iterations. Potentially such interventions may be cost-effective but are unlikely to be cost-saving even allowing for sustained effects and cumulative adverse health and social care events averted. Empirical studies are needed to determine the cost-effectiveness of these interventions, ideally mapping changes in loneliness to the quality of life, in order to allow the key metric in health economic studies, cost per quality adjusted life year to be estimated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Modelling the Economic Impact of Reducing Loneliness in Community Dwelling Older People in England

McDaid

Park

2021

IJERPH

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“…Most of the research was conducted in European countries [7, 25, 39-59, 72, 73] with four from the USA [64][65][66][67], two from each of Israel [60,61] and New Zealand [19,62] and single studies from Singapore [68] and Australia [63]. Four studies provided estimates of prevalence across a large proportion of Europe [69][70][71]73]. Living circumstances were reported in seven studies; people living in institutions were included in four studies [25,39,49,50], excluded in three [46,52,61] and no data available from the remainder.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of loneliness amongst older people in high-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

et al. 2021

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Background and objective Loneliness is associated with increased rates of morbidity and mortality, and is a growing public health concern in later life. This study aimed to produce an evidence-based estimate of the prevalence of loneliness amongst older people (aged 60 years and above). Study design and setting Systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis of observational studies from high income countries 2008 to 2020, identified from searches of five electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, Proquest Social Sciences Premium Collection). Studies were included if they measured loneliness in an unselected population. Results Thirty-nine studies reported data on 120,000 older people from 29 countries. Thirty-one studies were suitable for meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence estimate of loneliness was 28.5% (95%CI: 23.9% - 33.2%). In twenty-nine studies reporting loneliness severity, the pooled prevalence was 25.9% (95%CI: 21.6% - 30.3%) for moderate loneliness and 7.9% (95%CI: 4.8% - 11.6%) for severe loneliness (z = -6.1, p < 0.001). Similar pooled prevalence estimates were observed for people aged 65–75 years (27.6%, 95%CI: 22.6% - 33.0%) and over 75 years (31.3%, 95%CI: 21.0% - 42.7%, z = 0.64, p = 0.52). Lower levels of loneliness were reported in studies from Northern Europe compared to South and Eastern Europe. Conclusions Loneliness is common amongst older adults affecting approximately one in four in high income countries. There is no evidence of an increase in the prevalence of loneliness with age in the older population. The burden of loneliness is an important public health and social problem, despite severe loneliness being uncommon. PROSPERO registration CRD42017060472.

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“…Previous studies have shown that loneliness is significantly associated with functional decline among the aged [27][28][29]. A recent study that also used the De Jong Gierveld loneliness scale found significant associations between loneliness and physical and mental functioning in an ageing population [30]. In addition, loneliness was negatively correlated with measures of optimism in another cross-sectional study [56].…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Research has shown that loneliness is significantly associated with functional decline among the aged [27][28][29]. A recent study found significant associations between loneliness and physical and mental functioning in an ageing population [30]. De Jong Gierveld et al [31,32] developed a popular loneliness scale and conceptualized loneliness as "an individual's subjective, cognitive evaluation of his or her social participation, or social isolation, against the standards held for optimal embeddedness in a social network" [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Inequalities and Loneliness as Predictors of Ageing Well: A Trend Analysis Using Mixed Models

Klein

Knesebeck

Lüdecke

2020

IJERPH

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Background: This study examines if education, income, and loneliness are associated with physical functioning and optimism in an ageing population in Germany. Furthermore, time trends of physical functioning and optimism as well as of associations with social inequality and loneliness are analyzed. Methods: The German Ageing Survey (DEAS), a longitudinal population-based survey of individuals aged 40 years and older, was used (four waves between 2008 and 2017, total sample size N = 23,572). Physical functioning and optimism were introduced as indicators of ageing well. Educational level, net equivalent income, and loneliness were used as predictors in linear mixed models for longitudinal data. Results: Time trends show that physical functioning decreases over time, while optimism slightly increases. Education and income are positively associated with physical functioning, while higher loneliness correlates with lower physical functioning. Higher optimism was associated with higher income and particularly with lower loneliness. Income and notable educational inequalities in physical functioning increase over time. Time trends of the associations with optimism show decreasing income inequalities and increasing disparities in loneliness. Conclusions: Increasing educational inequalities in physical functioning and a strong association of loneliness with optimism provide information for further interventions. Targeted health promotion among the aged and addressing maladaptive social cognition are options to tackle these issues. Key areas for action on healthy ageing include, for instance, the alignment of health systems to the needs of older populations or the creation of age-friendly environments.

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The Association between Loneliness and Health Related Quality of Life (HR-QoL) among Community-Dwelling Older Citizens

Cited by 46 publications

References 29 publications

Modelling the Economic Impact of Reducing Loneliness in Community Dwelling Older People in England

Modelling the Economic Impact of Reducing Loneliness in Community Dwelling Older People in England

Prevalence of loneliness amongst older people in high-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Social Inequalities and Loneliness as Predictors of Ageing Well: A Trend Analysis Using Mixed Models

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