What is it about?
What is our concern? Everyone has felt lonely at some point in their lives. But for older adults, loneliness can become a more serious problem, affecting their physical and mental health. Our study aimed to better understand why some older adults feel lonelier than others and what role their social relationships play in this experience. What did we do? We conducted a study with a group of older adults living in Spain. We asked them about their relationships with different people in their lives, such as their partner, children, grandchildren, siblings, friends, and neighbors. We also asked them about their loneliness, both emotionally (feeling isolated or disconnected from others) and socially (feeling a lack of company in daily activities). What did we find? Not all supportive relationships have the same relationship with loneliness among older adults. For example, support from a partner, grandchildren, and siblings can help reduce feelings of emotional loneliness. However, when it comes to social loneliness, that is, the lack of company in daily activities, support from grandchildren, friends, and siblings seems to be especially important. Particularly striking is that support from sons, daughters, and neighbors may be associated with more loneliness. These results are interesting because they show us that to combat loneliness, it is not enough to have many people around us. The quality of relationships and the type of support we receive also play a crucial role.
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Why is it important?
In our study, we cast a wide net, including many of the key relationships older adults typically cultivate: spouses, children, grandchildren, siblings, friends, and neighbors. By differentiating between sons and daughters as sources of support, we went beyond previous research. Therefore, our results are particularly detailed and allow us to understand the complexity of loneliness. Furthermore, we used a mixed methods approach (quantitative and qualitative), which allows us to delve deeper into the role that different significant people play in the experience of loneliness among older adults.
Perspectives
The common assumption is that social connections are a panacea for loneliness. Intuitively, one might think that social relationships and the support that others provide always make people feel less lonely. However, this is not the case. In fact, it is a simplistic view of a very complex problem. I personally believe that in this article we have been able to develop in detail the contrary idea, the idea that loneliness is not just about having people nearby, or even having people who help you. This is something that gains importance during aging. Plos One's generous page limits allowed us to delve deeply into this topic, and I have thoroughly enjoyed contributing to this research.
Dr Esteban Sanchez-Moreno
Complutense University, Madrid
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unravelling the complexity of the relationship between social support sources and loneliness: A mixed-methods study with older adults, PLOS One, January 2025, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316751.
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