Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 1 of 1
The role of social relationships in predicting loneliness: the national social life, health and aging project
- Authors:
- SHIOVITZ-EZRA Sharon, LEITSCH Sara A.
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work Research, 34(3), September 2010, pp.157-167.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Using data collected (July 2005-March 2006, two-hour in-home interviews) with 3,005 adults, older people and very old people (57-85 years, 1,445 men and 1,550 women), during the National Social Life, Health and Aging project in the United States, this paper explores associations between objective and subjective social network characteristics and loneliness in later life. The authors used hierarchical linear regression to look at the associations between measures of objective and subjective social network characteristics and how they relate to predictions of loneliness, across marital status, in later life. With the whole sample, as well as the cohabiting/married sample, objective indicators such as frequency of contact with members of social networks were negatively linked to feeling of loneliness, “net of background characteristics.” Subjective perceptions of social ties, the quality of married, or cohabiting, life in later years and the quality of familial ties for those not in intimate relationships are also important, says this author. For example, in the cohabiting/married sample subjective perceptions of one’s relationship with the partner explained 7% of the variance in loneliness, while the quality of interpersonal relationships within families accounted for an additional 6% of the loneliness in the ‘non-partnered’ sample. The author lists practical implication for social workers and other professionals, such as the implementation of group, as well as one-to-one interventions.