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Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later Life
Despite the large amount of research into loneliness, the evidence base around effective ways of tackling loneliness among older adults is limited. Up to one-half of all older adults regularly feel lonely, negatively impacting physical and mental health. In light of population aging, family dispersa...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
SAGE Publications
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7376373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32743025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2333721420941976 |
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author | Carragher, Lucia Ryan, Catherine |
author_facet | Carragher, Lucia Ryan, Catherine |
author_sort | Carragher, Lucia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Despite the large amount of research into loneliness, the evidence base around effective ways of tackling loneliness among older adults is limited. Up to one-half of all older adults regularly feel lonely, negatively impacting physical and mental health. In light of population aging, family dispersal, and in the aftermath of COVID-19, it is vital that we grow the evidence base around the lived experience of older people, knowing what they want and why, and ensuring community services and supports are meaningful to them. Method: Three focus groups were held with community-dwelling older adults in Ireland. Results: Loneliness is associated with the loss of familiarity and connection to community. Conclusions: Understanding loneliness in later life is increasingly important with population aging. As plans for ending confinement linked to COVID-19 are devised, a mechanism is urgently needed to sustain the positive changes to communities which have meaningfully connected with older adults. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7376373 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73763732020-07-31 Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later Life Carragher, Lucia Ryan, Catherine Gerontol Geriatr Med Article Despite the large amount of research into loneliness, the evidence base around effective ways of tackling loneliness among older adults is limited. Up to one-half of all older adults regularly feel lonely, negatively impacting physical and mental health. In light of population aging, family dispersal, and in the aftermath of COVID-19, it is vital that we grow the evidence base around the lived experience of older people, knowing what they want and why, and ensuring community services and supports are meaningful to them. Method: Three focus groups were held with community-dwelling older adults in Ireland. Results: Loneliness is associated with the loss of familiarity and connection to community. Conclusions: Understanding loneliness in later life is increasingly important with population aging. As plans for ending confinement linked to COVID-19 are devised, a mechanism is urgently needed to sustain the positive changes to communities which have meaningfully connected with older adults. SAGE Publications 2020-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7376373/ /pubmed/32743025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2333721420941976 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | Article Carragher, Lucia Ryan, Catherine Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later Life |
title | Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later
Life |
title_full | Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later
Life |
title_fullStr | Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later
Life |
title_full_unstemmed | Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later
Life |
title_short | Dying to Belong: The Importance of Familiarity in Later
Life |
title_sort | dying to belong: the importance of familiarity in later
life |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7376373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32743025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2333721420941976 |
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