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Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts

Background: Loneliness co-occurs alongside many mental health problems and is associated with poorer treatment outcomes. It could therefore be a phenomenon of interest to clinicians as an indicator of generalised risk for psychopathology. The present study tested whether a short measure of lonelines...

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Autores principales: Matthews, Timothy, Bryan, Bridget T., Danese, Andrea, Meehan, Alan J., Poulton, Richie, Arseneault, Louise
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834872/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162664
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031641
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author Matthews, Timothy
Bryan, Bridget T.
Danese, Andrea
Meehan, Alan J.
Poulton, Richie
Arseneault, Louise
author_facet Matthews, Timothy
Bryan, Bridget T.
Danese, Andrea
Meehan, Alan J.
Poulton, Richie
Arseneault, Louise
author_sort Matthews, Timothy
collection PubMed
description Background: Loneliness co-occurs alongside many mental health problems and is associated with poorer treatment outcomes. It could therefore be a phenomenon of interest to clinicians as an indicator of generalised risk for psychopathology. The present study tested whether a short measure of loneliness can accurately classify individuals who are at increased risk of common mental health problems. Methods: Data were drawn from two nationally representative cohorts: the age-18 wave of the UK-based Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study and the age-38 wave of the New Zealand-based Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. In both cohorts, loneliness was assessed using the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale, plus two stand-alone items about feeling alone and feeling lonely. Outcome measures consisted of diagnoses of depression and anxiety and self-reports of self-harm/suicide attempts, assessed via a structured interview. Results: ROC curve analysis showed that the Loneliness Scale had fair accuracy in classifying individuals meeting criteria for all three outcomes, with a cut-off score of 5 (on a scale from 3 to 9) having the strongest empirical support. Both of the stand-alone items showed modest sensitivity and specificity but were more limited in their flexibility. The findings were replicated across the two cohorts, indicating that they are applicable both to younger and older adults. In addition, the accuracy of the loneliness scale in detecting mental health problems was comparable to a measure of poor sleep quality, a phenomenon which is often included in screening tools for depression and anxiety. Conclusions: These findings indicate that a loneliness measure could have utility in mental health screening contexts, as well as in research.
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spelling pubmed-88348722022-02-12 Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts Matthews, Timothy Bryan, Bridget T. Danese, Andrea Meehan, Alan J. Poulton, Richie Arseneault, Louise Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Loneliness co-occurs alongside many mental health problems and is associated with poorer treatment outcomes. It could therefore be a phenomenon of interest to clinicians as an indicator of generalised risk for psychopathology. The present study tested whether a short measure of loneliness can accurately classify individuals who are at increased risk of common mental health problems. Methods: Data were drawn from two nationally representative cohorts: the age-18 wave of the UK-based Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study and the age-38 wave of the New Zealand-based Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. In both cohorts, loneliness was assessed using the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale, plus two stand-alone items about feeling alone and feeling lonely. Outcome measures consisted of diagnoses of depression and anxiety and self-reports of self-harm/suicide attempts, assessed via a structured interview. Results: ROC curve analysis showed that the Loneliness Scale had fair accuracy in classifying individuals meeting criteria for all three outcomes, with a cut-off score of 5 (on a scale from 3 to 9) having the strongest empirical support. Both of the stand-alone items showed modest sensitivity and specificity but were more limited in their flexibility. The findings were replicated across the two cohorts, indicating that they are applicable both to younger and older adults. In addition, the accuracy of the loneliness scale in detecting mental health problems was comparable to a measure of poor sleep quality, a phenomenon which is often included in screening tools for depression and anxiety. Conclusions: These findings indicate that a loneliness measure could have utility in mental health screening contexts, as well as in research. MDPI 2022-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8834872/ /pubmed/35162664 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031641 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Matthews, Timothy
Bryan, Bridget T.
Danese, Andrea
Meehan, Alan J.
Poulton, Richie
Arseneault, Louise
Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title_full Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title_fullStr Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title_full_unstemmed Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title_short Using a Loneliness Measure to Screen for Risk of Mental Health Problems: A Replication in Two Nationally Representative Cohorts
title_sort using a loneliness measure to screen for risk of mental health problems: a replication in two nationally representative cohorts
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834872/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162664
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031641
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