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Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep

OBJECTIVES: This research innovatively analyzed the marital transitions (i.e., divorce and widowhood) of older Taiwanese parents, their sleep problems and spousal specific characteristics (i.e., separate bedrooms for sleep and marital relationships) as well as their social and family connections, al...

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Autores principales: Chiao, Chi, Lin, Wen-Hsu, Chen, Yu-Hua, Yi, Chin-Chun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34686133
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02550-x
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author Chiao, Chi
Lin, Wen-Hsu
Chen, Yu-Hua
Yi, Chin-Chun
author_facet Chiao, Chi
Lin, Wen-Hsu
Chen, Yu-Hua
Yi, Chin-Chun
author_sort Chiao, Chi
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: This research innovatively analyzed the marital transitions (i.e., divorce and widowhood) of older Taiwanese parents, their sleep problems and spousal specific characteristics (i.e., separate bedrooms for sleep and marital relationships) as well as their social and family connections, all of which were simultaneously reflected in emotional and social domains of loneliness. METHODS: Data are from 1645 older parents from Northern Taiwan. Loneliness was assessed by a De Jong-Gierveld short scale with emotional and social domains. We conducted multivariate logistic regression to examine the associations of marital transitions and family/social connections regarding sleep problems and psychological well-being with loneliness in social and emotional domains. Besides sleep problems and individual socioeconomic status, we included data on couples’ sleeping arrangements and marital relationships. RESULTS: Social loneliness was significantly associated with being divorced (AOR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.13–2.86) and living alone (AOR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.02–2.23). In contrast, strong family cohesion and frequent weekly contact with friends were associated with lower social loneliness. Married parents who slept in separate bedrooms were more likely than bed-sharing couples to feel emotional and social loneliness, despite adjusting for their sleep problems. Furthermore, satisfactory spousal relationships significantly decreased the magnitude of associations in the social domain. DISCUSSION: Our findings support significant associations between loneliness in later life and major marital transitions, family and social connections and sleep problems which differ in social and emotional domains. Independent of relationship satisfaction, separate bedrooms relate to higher risks of emotional loneliness in older adults.
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spelling pubmed-85325692021-10-25 Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep Chiao, Chi Lin, Wen-Hsu Chen, Yu-Hua Yi, Chin-Chun BMC Geriatr Research OBJECTIVES: This research innovatively analyzed the marital transitions (i.e., divorce and widowhood) of older Taiwanese parents, their sleep problems and spousal specific characteristics (i.e., separate bedrooms for sleep and marital relationships) as well as their social and family connections, all of which were simultaneously reflected in emotional and social domains of loneliness. METHODS: Data are from 1645 older parents from Northern Taiwan. Loneliness was assessed by a De Jong-Gierveld short scale with emotional and social domains. We conducted multivariate logistic regression to examine the associations of marital transitions and family/social connections regarding sleep problems and psychological well-being with loneliness in social and emotional domains. Besides sleep problems and individual socioeconomic status, we included data on couples’ sleeping arrangements and marital relationships. RESULTS: Social loneliness was significantly associated with being divorced (AOR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.13–2.86) and living alone (AOR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.02–2.23). In contrast, strong family cohesion and frequent weekly contact with friends were associated with lower social loneliness. Married parents who slept in separate bedrooms were more likely than bed-sharing couples to feel emotional and social loneliness, despite adjusting for their sleep problems. Furthermore, satisfactory spousal relationships significantly decreased the magnitude of associations in the social domain. DISCUSSION: Our findings support significant associations between loneliness in later life and major marital transitions, family and social connections and sleep problems which differ in social and emotional domains. Independent of relationship satisfaction, separate bedrooms relate to higher risks of emotional loneliness in older adults. BioMed Central 2021-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8532569/ /pubmed/34686133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02550-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Chiao, Chi
Lin, Wen-Hsu
Chen, Yu-Hua
Yi, Chin-Chun
Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title_full Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title_fullStr Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title_full_unstemmed Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title_short Loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
title_sort loneliness in older parents: marital transitions, family and social connections, and separate bedrooms for sleep
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34686133
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02550-x
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