SynthesisJournal of affective disorders2022
Sense of purpose in life and concurrent loneliness and risk of incident loneliness: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 135,227 individuals from 36 cohorts.
Synthesis in Journal of affective disorders, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 6 of them syntheses 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.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Purpose in life and mortality: A meta-analysis of the published literature and individual-participant data of 488,765 participants followed for up to 32 years.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Purpose in life and depressive symptoms: An individual-participant meta-analysis of >500,000 participants across six world regions.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Pooled it
- Purpose in life and c-reactive protein: An individual-participant meta-analysis of >50,000 adults.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- Purpose in life and lung function: an individual-participant meta-analysis of six cohort studies.Respiratory research · 2025Pooled it
- Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Sense of meaning and purpose in life and risk of incident dementia: New data and meta-analysis.Archives of gerontology and geriatrics · 2023Pooled it
- Purpose in life and concurrent and incident fatigue.Psychology, health & medicine · 2026Article
- Development of an AI-Enabled Remote Loneliness Assessment System for Older Adults Using Behavioral and Speech Data From IoT Sensors and Smart Speakers.Assessment · 2026Article
- Loneliness and the Presence of Meaning: Co-Developmental Trends and Reciprocal Dynamics among Chinese Junior High School Students.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2026Article
- Loneliness in prostate cancer survivors.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2026Article
- Momentary associations between purpose in life and social connection from a micro-longitudinal study of everyday life.Acta psychologica · 2026Article
- The longitudinal relation between purpose in life and accelerometer-measured physical activity.Mental health and physical activity · 2026Article
- Daily Activities and Purpose in Life.International journal of wellbeing · 2026Article
- Unfolding the Effects of Social Prescription, Health Consciousness Behavior, Physical Activity, and Mental Well-Being for Healthy Aging: An Empirical Analysis.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Article
- Community music activity participation and loneliness among Chinese young adults living alone.Frontiers in public health · 2026Observational
- Purpose in life in late adolescence and incident depression over 10 years.Journal of psychiatric research · 2026Article
- Mapping the factors of loneliness in older adults: the role of employment and work activity - a scoping review.International journal of occupational medicine and environmental health · 2025Article
- Investigating the trivariate reciprocal longitudinal relationships between purpose, loneliness, and cognitive function.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- The role of purpose in life in healthy aging: implications for the Semmelweis Study and the Semmelweis-EUniWell Workplace Health Promotion Model Program.GeroScience · 2025Review
- Personality traits and loneliness: An ecological momentary assessment study with self and partner ratings.Journal of research in personality · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSense of purpose, the feeling that one's life is goal-oriented and driven, tends to be protective for psychological health. Less is known about its relation with social health, particularly loneliness. We test whether the cross-sectional association between purpose and loneliness is replicable and whether purpose protects against the development of incident loneliness over time.
methodsParticipants from 36 cohorts (total N = 135,227; age range 18-109) reported on their sense of purpose, loneliness, and psychological distress. Follow-up measures of loneliness were available in 28 cohorts that ranged from six weeks to 15 years. Prospective, random-effect meta-analysis was used to summarize the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations from each cohort.
resultsSense of purpose was associated significantly with less loneliness in all 36 cohorts, controlling for sociodemographic factors (meta-analytic mean effect estimate = -0.31, 95% CI = -0.34, -0.29, p < .001). This association was stronger among participants experiencing concurrent severe psychological distress. Sense of purpose was protective against the development of new incident loneliness (meta-analytic mean hazard ratio estimate = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.82, 0.87, p < .001). Age did not moderate any of the associations. LIMITATIONS: Limitations include the lack of lower-income countries. The mechanisms that explain this association also need to be identified in future research.
conclusionsSense of purpose is associated with less loneliness and with protection against developing loneliness over time, associations that replicated across cohorts from North America, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Sense of purpose may be a useful target of intervention to prevent or reduce loneliness, especially among individuals suffering from psychological distress.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.