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‘Nowadays you don’t even see your neighbours’: loneliness in the everyday lives of older Australians
Author(s) -
Stanley Mandy,
Moyle Wendy,
Ballantyne Alison,
Jaworski Katrina,
Corlis Megan,
Oxlade Deborah,
Stoll Andrew,
Young Beverley
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
health and social care in the community
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.984
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1365-2524
pISSN - 0966-0410
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2010.00923.x
Subject(s) - loneliness , social connectedness , social isolation , context (archaeology) , service provider , focus group , older people , psychology , nonprobability sampling , social work , social psychology , gerontology , service (business) , sociology , medicine , political science , psychiatry , population , paleontology , economy , anthropology , law , economics , biology , demography
Loneliness is a pressing social issue for older people globally. Despite this, there is a paucity of studies on how older people themselves perceive loneliness and how service providers can support them. This study sought to address the gap using in‐depth and semi‐structured interviews with 60 older people and eight focus groups with aged care service providers in Australia in 2007. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to incorporate maximum participant variation. People 65 years and over were recruited from four large service providers in two Australian states. Our findings show that loneliness is influenced by private, relational and temporal dimensions and whether older people feel that they have, or are seen by others as having, a sense of connectedness with the wider community. Participants expressed the importance of maintaining social contact and having a sense of connection and belonging to the community. Our study highlights both the significance of gathering the views of older people to generate an understanding about loneliness and the need to recognise loneliness as a diverse and complex experience, bound to the context in which it is understood and perceived and not synonymous with social isolation. Such an understanding can be used to both evaluate and improve upon programmes that address loneliness and to help maintain an integration of older people in the community.