BACKGROUND Clinical care alone at the end of life is unlikely to meet all needs. Volunteers are a key resource, acceptable to patients, but there is no evidence on care outcomes. This study aimed to determine whether support from a social action volunteer service is better than usual care at improving quality of life for adults in the last year of life. METHODS A pragmatic, multi-centre wait-...

Using a netnographic and case-study-based approach, this article uses different blogs as data in order to analyse how loneliness is conceptualized and understood. More precisely, the study aims to investigate experiences of loneliness and related themes in the context of online communication. In approaching the nature of loneliness, we have analytically leaned on the theories and some of the mo...

Increasing evidence suggests that perceived social isolation or loneliness is a major risk factor for physical and mental illness in later life. This review assesses the status of research on loneliness and health in older adults. Key concepts and definitions of loneliness are identified, and the prevalence, correlates, and health effects of loneliness in older individuals are reviewed. Theoret...

Intimacy defi cits and loneliness recently have been theorized as infl uential factors in the etiology and maintenance of sexually offending behaviors, although to date there has been a lack of empirical research conducted to address this proposition. The present study examined intimacy defi cits, fear of intimacy, and loneliness among intrafamilial child molesters, rapists, nonsexually offendi...

The authors report a narrative literature review of 33 intervention studies designed to reduce loneliness and social isolation in older adults. Loneliness and social isolation are related but separable constructs, and the outcomes included in the review are also related but separable. The authors conclude that there is “substantial heterogeneity in the interventions delivered” (p. 2) and that “...

Loneliness is a hurtful feeling that has been attributed to a discrepancy between desired and achieved levels of social contact, self esteem has to do with an individual’s overall evaluation of his or her sense of worth, whereas depression was associated with isolated lives, the absence of pleasure as well as social and vocational impairment. The UCLA loneliness scale (version 3), the Rosenberg...