Open AccessLoneliness and its Association with Health Behaviors in People with a Lived Experience of a Serious Mental Illness
Author(s) -
Karen L. Fortuna,
Joelle C. Ferron,
Cynthia Bianco,
Meghan Santos,
Ashley Williams,
Michael Williams,
George Mois,
Sarah I. Pratt
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
psychiatric quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.79
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1573-6709
pISSN - 0033-2720
DOI - 10.1007/s11126-020-09777-8
Subject(s) - loneliness , mental illness , mental health , psychiatry , psychology , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , association (psychology) , public health , clinical psychology , major depressive disorder , bipolar disorder , comorbidity , depression (economics) , medicine , mood , nursing , economics , psychotherapist , macroeconomics
To explore the association between loneliness and efficacy to engage in health behaviors that are known to reduce the risk of early mortality in people with serious mental illness (SMI). This secondary data analysis was based on a cross-sectional study of 113 participants with SMI residing in New Hampshire. Ordinary Least Squares regressions were used to examine bivariate relationships between variables of interest. Participants had a primary mental health diagnosis of major depressive disorder (37.2%), schizophrenia spectrum disorder (28.3%), bipolar disorder (29.2%), or posttraumatic stress disorder (5.3%). High levels of loneliness were associated with low levels of self-efficacy to manage chronic diseases (p = 0.0001), as well as low levels of self-efficacy to manage psychological well-being (R 2 = .31; F = 9.49, p = 0.0001; RMSE = 1.66). Loneliness may serve as a barrier to healthy behaviors, and thus, contribute to early mortality among people with SMI. The growing body of literature that demonstrates the importance of addressing loneliness in people with SMI should stimulate policymakers and researchers to target loneliness as a mechanism to address early mortality in people with SMI.