ArticleAging & mental health2018
Assessing the relative importance of correlates of loneliness in later life. Gaining insight using recursive partitioning.
Article in Aging & mental health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Family stress model pathways to cognitive function in older adulthood.Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) · 2026Article
- Family stress model pathways in middle adulthood to loneliness in later adulthood: Role of self-mastery.Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) · 2025Article
- Risk factors for loneliness: A literature review.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Review
- Understanding the psychological experiences of loneliness in later life: qualitative protocol to inform technology development.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Potentially traumatic events have negative and positive effects on loneliness, depending on PTSD-symptom levels: evidence from a population-based prospective comparative study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2018Article
- Loneliness in Relation to Social Factors and Self-Reported Health Among Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of primary care & community healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesImproving the design and targeting of interventions is important for alleviating loneliness among older adults. This requires identifying which correlates are the most important predictors of loneliness. This study demonstrates the use of recursive partitioning in exploring the characteristics and assessing the relative importance of correlates of loneliness in older adults.
methodUsing exploratory regression trees and random forests, we examined combinations and the relative importance of 42 correlates in relation to loneliness at age 68 among 2453 participants from the birth cohort study the MRC National Survey of Health and Development.
resultsPositive mental well-being, personal mastery, identifying the spouse as the closest confidant, being extrovert and informal social contact were the most important correlates of lower loneliness levels. Participation in organised groups and demographic correlates were poor identifiers of loneliness. The regression tree suggested that loneliness was not raised among those with poor mental wellbeing if they identified their partner as closest confidante and had frequent social contact.
conclusionRecursive partitioning can identify which combinations of experiences and circumstances characterise high-risk groups. Poor mental wellbeing and sparse social contact emerged as especially important and classical demographic factors as insufficient in identifying high loneliness levels among older adults.
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