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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys
— results from two population-based studies | | Author(s) | Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Linda J Waite, Louise C Hawkley |
| Journal title | Research on Aging, vol 26, no 6, November 2004 |
| Pages | pp 655-672 |
| Source | http://www.sagepub.com |
| Keywords | Loneliness ; Isolation ; Evaluation ; Social surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Most studies of social relationships in later life focus on the amount of social contact not on individuals' perceptions of social isolation. However, loneliness is likely to be an important aspect of ageing. A major limiting factor in studying loneliness has been the lack of a measure suitable for large-scale social surveys. This article describes a short loneliness scale developed specifically for use in a telephone survey. The scale has three items and a simplified set of response categories, but appears to measure overall loneliness quite well. The authors also document the relationship between loneliness and several commonly used measures of objective social isolation. As expected, they find that objective and subjective isolation are related. However, the relationship is relatively modest, indicating the qualitative and quantitative aspects of social relationships are distinct. This result suggests the importance of studying both dimensions of social relationships in the ageing process. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-050201203 A |
| Classmark | DV: TP: 4C: 3F: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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