ArticleBMJ mental health2023
Living alone and mental health: parallel analyses in UK longitudinal population surveys and electronic health records prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in BMJ mental health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mapping Life Satisfaction Over the First Years of Cohabitation Among Former Singles Living Alone in UK and Germany.Journal of personality · 2026Article
- Partnership Quality and Mental Health Among Older Adults in England Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2026Article
- Social isolation in mid-life: associations with psychological distress, life satisfaction and self-rated health in two successive British birth cohorts.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Learning the hard way: What COVID-19 teaches us about the social determinants of mental health among the urban poor.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Difference in excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic depending on marital status in Japan.PloS one · 2026Article
- Recovery of psychological wellbeing following the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal analysis of the English longitudinal study of ageing.Aging & mental health · 2025Article
- Sexual behaviours and risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection among MSM during the first COVID-19 lockdown.BMC public health · 2024Article
- The association between living alone and depressive symptoms in older adults population: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
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31 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundPeople who live alone experience greater levels of mental illness; however, it is unclear whether the COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionately negative impact on this demographic.
objectiveTo describe the mental health gap between those who live alone and with others in the UK prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsSelf-reported psychological distress and life satisfaction in 10 prospective longitudinal population surveys (LPSs) assessed in the nearest pre-pandemic sweep and three periods during the pandemic. Recorded diagnosis of common and severe mental illnesses between March 2018 and January 2022 in electronic healthcare records (EHRs) within the OpenSAFELY-TPP.
findingsIn 37 544 LPS participants, pooled models showed greater psychological distress (standardised mean difference (SMD): 0.09 (95% CI: 0.04; 0.14); relative risk: 1.25 (95% CI: 1.12; 1.39)) and lower life satisfaction (SMD: -0.22 (95% CI: -0.30; -0.15)) for those living alone pre-pandemic. This gap did not change during the pandemic. In the EHR analysis of c.16 million records, mental health conditions were more common in those who lived alone (eg, depression 26 (95% CI: 18 to 33) and severe mental illness 58 (95% CI: 54 to 62) more cases more per 100 000). For common mental health disorders, the gap in recorded cases in EHRs narrowed during the pandemic.
conclusionsPeople living alone have poorer mental health and lower life satisfaction. During the pandemic, this gap in self-reported distress remained; however, there was a narrowing of the gap in service use. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Greater mental health need and potentially greater barriers to mental healthcare access for those who live alone need to be considered in healthcare planning.
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