Loneliness is a common problem in long-term care facilities (LTCF) and previous work has shown that animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can to some degree reverse loneliness. Here, we compared the ability of a living dog (Dog) and a robotic dog (AIBO) to treat loneliness in elderly patients living in LTCF. In comparison with a control group not receiving AAT, both the Dog and AIBO groups had statisti...

The social–emotional functions associated with the Dark Triad traits have recently been widely examined. However, no study has explored the relationship between the Dark Triad traits and loneliness in adolescents. The present study aimed to examine the direct and indirect contributions of the Dark Triad traits and both trait and ability emotional intelligence (i.e., EI) to feelings of lonelines...

Influence of loneliness on human survival has been established epidemiologically, but genomic research remains undeveloped. We identified 34 loneliness-associated genes which were statistically significant for high- lonely and low-lonely individuals. With the univariate Cox proportional hazards regression model, we obtained corresponding regression coefficients for loneliness-associated genes f...

Chinese rural-to-urban migrant workers (MWs) who are employed in service industry are a rapidly growing population in urban China. Like other MWs, service industry MWs (SIMWs) are generally excluded from the mainstream of city societies, but unlike other MWs, they are more marginalized in cities. Social isolation increases the feelings of loneliness; however, there are little empirical data on ...

OBJECTIVES Loneliness is a biopsychosocial determinant of health and contributes to physical and psychological chronic illnesses, functional decline, and mortality in older adults. This paper presents the results of the first randomized trial of LISTEN, which is a new cognitive behavioral intervention for loneliness, on loneliness, neuroimmunological stress response, psychosocial functioning, q...

Loneliness is often manifested by intense feelings of emptiness and abandonment and can lead to depression and suicide. The prevalence of loneliness in older adults is estimated to be 40%. This secondary analysis examined differences between elders reporting and elders not reporting loneliness and the effect of gender on resourcefulness and measures of physical and mental health within the cont...

OBJECTIVE Loneliness is a well-established risk factor for poor physical health. Much less is known about how loneliness affects patient-reported outcomes (PROs), such as somatic symptoms, which are increasingly important for guiding symptom management and assessing quality of patient care. The current study investigates whether (a) loneliness and social isolation predict cold symptoms independ...

Loneliness has been shown to longitudinally predict subjective well-being. The authors used data from a longitudinal population-based study (2002-2006) of non-Hispanic white, African-American, and nonblack Latino-American persons born between 1935 and 1952 and living in Cook County, Illinois. They applied marginal structural models for time-varying exposures to examine the magnitude and persist...

and clubs are in short supply for special school-leavers to provide stability and order during the difficult years of adolescence and to prevent much wastage of young lives?and of potential workers. Besides the valuable contribution made by the National Association for Mental Health in establishing two such hostels, local authorities are tackling this problem; and the provision of purpose-built...

Loneliness and perceived social support were examined in 39 adolescent boys with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) by means of a self-labeling loneliness measure, the UCLA Loneliness Scale (third version), and the Social Support Scale for Children. Twenty-one percent of the boys with ASD described themselves as often or always feeling lonely. Compared with 199 boys from regular schools in a natio...