Trial reportBMC psychiatry2021
Trajectories of loneliness and objective social isolation and associations between persistent loneliness and self-reported personal recovery in a cohort of secondary mental health service users in the UK.
Trial report in BMC psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Who Benefits from Acute Psychiatric Home Treatment? A Systematic Review.Community mental health journal · 2024Pooled it
- Daily loneliness deconstructed: Examining patterns of within- and between-person variation.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Mapping loneliness prevention and alleviation interventions: a comparative survey of Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Dublin.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- The moderating effect of age on loneliness and subjective remaining life expectancy among Chinese adults.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Effect of crisis resolution team treatment on crisis experience and crisis coping: a multicenter pre-post study in Norway.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Who Benefits from Home Treatment? Predictors of Treatment Outcome in an Acute Psychiatric Setting: an Observational Study.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2025Observational
- Association of Game Use With Loneliness and Social Isolation: A Nationwide Korean Study.Psychiatry investigation · 2025Article
- Investigating trajectories linking social cognitive capacity, bias, and social isolation using computational modeling.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Associations between recorded loneliness and adverse mental health outcomes among patients receiving mental healthcare in South London: a retrospective cohort study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2024Article
- Article
- A Longitudinal Study of Loneliness Before the End of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Trajectories, Predictors, and Impact on Chinese Adolescent Mental Health.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
- The Mental Health Impacts of Fuel Poverty: A Global Scoping Review.International journal of public health · 2024Article
- Association of cumulative loneliness with all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older adults in the United States, 1996 to 2019.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Exploring the experiences of loneliness in adults with mental health problems: A participatory qualitative interview study.PloS one · 2023Article
- Prevalence of and Factors Associated with Negative Psychological Symptoms among Elderly Widows Living Alone in a Chinese Remote Sample: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Longitudinal Association of Physical Activity, Mastery and Psychological Distress in Mid-Aged Adults over 9-Years.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLoneliness is a frequent and distressing experience among people with mental health problems. However, few longitudinal studies have so far investigated the trajectories of loneliness and objective social isolation, and the extent to which both issues may impact mental health outcomes among mental health service users. Therefore, this study aims to describe the trajectories of loneliness and objective social isolation and their associations with self-rated personal recovery among people leaving crisis resolution teams (CRTs).
methodsA total of 224 participants receiving care from CRTs (recruited for a large multi-site randomised controlled trial) were included in this longitudinal cohort study. They completed the eight-item University of California at Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (ULS-8), Lubben-Social Network Scale (LNSN-6), and the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery (QPR) (primary outcome) at baseline, 4- and 18-month follow-up, as well as baseline sociodemographic and clinical variables.
resultsWe compared groups who were persistently lonely (at all time points), intermittently lonely (at one or two time points) and never lonely. After adjusting for all potential confounders and baseline predictive variables, persistent severe loneliness was associated with worse personal recovery at 18-month follow-up compared with the never lonely (reference group) (coef. = - 12.8, 95% CI -11.8, - 3.8, p < .001), as was being intermittently lonely (coef. = - 7.8, 95% CI -18.8, - 6.8, p < .001). The persistently objectively social isolated group (coef. = - 9.8, 95% CI -15.7, - 3.8, p = .001) also had poorer self-rated recovery at 18-month follow-up than those who were not socially isolated at any timepoint (i.e., reference category).
conclusionResults suggest that both persistent loneliness and objective social isolation are associated with poorer self-rated recovery following a crisis, compatible with a causal relationship. These findings suggest a potential role for interventions aimed at alleviating loneliness and objective social isolation in improving recovery outcomes for people with mental health symptoms. Increased awareness of both issues among health practitioners is also warranted.
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