Yes / Loneliness in older people is associated with poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We undertook a parallel-group randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of telephone befriending for the maintenance of HRQoL in older people. An internal pilot tested the feasibility of the trial and intervention. Methods: Participants aged >74 years, with good cognitive function, living independently in one UK city were recruited through general practices and other sources, then randomised to: (1) 6 weeks of short one-to-one telephone calls, followed by 12 weeks of group telephone calls with up to six participants, led by a trained volunteer facilitator; or (2) a control group. The main trial required the recruitment of 248 participants in a 1-year accrual window, of whom 124 were to receive telephone befriending. The pilot specified three success criteria which had to be met in order to progress the main trial to completion: recruitment of 68 participants in 95 days; retention of 80% participants at 6 months; successful delivery of telephone befriending by local franchise of national charity. The primary clinical outcome was the Short Form (36) Health Instrument (SF-36) Mental Health (MH) dimension score collected by telephone 6 months following randomisation. Results: We informed 9,579 older people about the study. Seventy consenting participants were randomised to the pilot in 95 days, with 56 (80%) providing valid primary outcome data (26 intervention, 30 control). Twenty-four participants randomly allocated to the research arm actually received telephone befriending due to poor recruitment and retention of volunteer facilitators. The trial was closed early as a result. The mean 6-month SF-36 MH scores were 78 (SD 18) and 71 (SD 21) for the intervention and control groups, respectively (mean difference, 7; 95% CI, −3 to 16). Conclusions: Recruitment and retention of participants to a definitive trial with a recruitment window of 1 year is feasible. For the voluntary sector to recruit sufficient volunteers to match demand for telephone befriending created by trial recruitment would require the study to be run in more than one major population centre, and/or involve dedicated management of volunteers. Trial registration: ISRCTN28645428.

Meaningful social connections are an important part of our lives, especially as we age, and are associated with life satisfaction and psychological well-being. At the same time making friends and creating connections is known to be challenging in older age. In this thesis, we focus on studying how technology can help to collect information about older adults that can be useful for facilitating friendship formation and social interactions among users. We start by describing early work that shows the opportunities of technology in improving well-being of older adults. The conducted studies and review work highlights the potential of social interactions in motivating older adults for technology use and exercising. We then study factors affecting people's social connectedness and friendships. The study highlights that common life points are related to higher levels of connectedness and frequency of interactions. We then move the focus on studying friendship formation in later life, and specifically on how technology can help to facilitate friendship formation. From observations in the nursing homes we see that reminiscence is often used to collect information about a person’s history and values, we look at this practice as a way to identify information potentially useful to recommend friendships, especially in nursing homes context. We conduct Interviews and observations with nursing homes stakeholders and gerontology doctors to define requirements and opportunities of reminiscence conversational agent suitable to their current practices. We then conduct a study to explore how the concept of the bot and features are perceived by elderly, NH staff and doctors. Finally, we present the work carried out to define and validate the concept of a reminiscence-based conversational agent aimed at: i) conducting storytelling conversations that are engaging and natural and ii) being effective in collecting information about the user (e.g values, interests, places) that later can be used for recommending potential friends.

An exploration of the interpersonal experiences of loneliness by older people in a residential care facility It is estimated that there were about 3, 8 million older people in South Africa in 2010 (Statistics South Africa, 2010). Many older people have to be cared for in residential care facilities due to their weakening health, the migration of children and grandchildren, or due to limited financial resources. This has led to the attempt in this research study to explore the interpersonal experiences of loneliness by older people living in a residential care facility. Loneliness is an unpleasant experience associated with inadequate interpersonal contact. It is widely accepted that loneliness is closely associated with ageing as a consequence of multiple losses – loss of abilities, loss of and changes in personal relationships, loss of relationships with familiar environments and changed contact with friends and relatives resulting in reduced relationships. Changes in the relationship with the environment are regarded as a particular loss by older people, especially if they have to rely on institutionalized care and loose contact with familiar social networks and the free association with other people. Lonely people are isolated people. For the purpose of this study, loneliness is regarded as a relational phenomenon, and the theory of complex responsive processes of relating will be used as the theoretical framework for this study. In an attempt to understand the interpersonal experiences associated with loneliness, a qualitative and exploratory research method was used. The research was conducted in a residential care facility in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group of older people, who was purposively selected for the study, consisted of 10 older persons: 7 female and 3 male and with ages ranging between 62 and 82 years of age. The data was collected by means of various qualitative techniques, including the Mmogo-methodTM and visual drawings. The collected data was analysed by using thematic analysis, visual analysis and key-words-in-context, and crystallization was used to increase the trustworthiness of the findings. Ethical approval for the research project was obtained from the North-West University. Two themes emerged from the findings, being: 1) Relationships are experienced in terms of the interactions in relationships as well as in terms of preferred interpersonal styles; and 2) The relationships experienced in the context of the residential care facility are described as being unsafe and lacking in care, while the environment is described as non-stimulating. Some of the findings are confirmed by existing literature. However, the unique contribution of the study is the finding that the environment in which the relationships are embedded is perceived to be dangerous, and that it is perceived to be a risk to become visible to each other in order to establish meaningful interpersonal relationships. Several suggestions regarding future interventions are made and some limitations of the study are mentioned. The contribution of the study is that loneliness are expressed and described in terms of interpersonal relationships embedded in the broader environment. Thus, the potential of older people to form meaningful interpersonal relationships are limited in the broader environment if the environment is experienced as unsafe and lacking in care. / Thesis (MSc (Research Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Researchers have examined social relationships as a basic need, showing that being well integrated in a network of social ties is related to various positive health outcomes including reduced mortality and risk behavior (e.g. reduced alcohol consumption). Conversely, a lack of strong social ties is related to negative outcomes including depression, suicide, and substance use (Berkman & Syme, 1979; Durkheim, 1951; Sarason, Sarason, & Gurung, 2001). Loneliness, a negative affective experience resulting from relationship deficits, is related to similar health outcomes as social isolation including depression and problematic alcohol use (Cacioppo, Hawkley, Crawford et al., 2002). However, research to date examining loneliness and health behavior has predominantly employed cross-sectional measures (e.g. UCLA Loneliness Scale; Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980), therefore failing to capture more fluctuating experiences of and responses to loneliness which may signify maladaptive patterns of coping behavior (Hawkley, Burleson, Bernston, & Cacioppo, 2003; Shankur, McMunn, Banks, & Steptoe, 2011). The purpose of this present study was to examine responses to daily loneliness (i.e. social and solitary alcohol consumption) as a function of social integration and gender, through a secondary analysis of data collected in a larger daily process study. Results indicated that daytime loneliness predicted evening increases in solitary consumption and decreases in social consumption. Further, these within-person effects were influenced by gender and social integration. These findings provide a unique understanding of specific processes by which social relationships, or the perceived lack thereof, influence health and more specifically, mood-related health behavior.

An exploration of the interpersonal experiences of loneliness by older people in a residential care facility It is estimated that there were about 3, 8 million older people in South Africa in 2010 (Statistics South Africa, 2010). Many older people have to be cared for in residential care facilities due to their weakening health, the migration of children and grandchildren, or due to limited financial resources. This has led to the attempt in this research study to explore the interpersonal experiences of loneliness by older people living in a residential care facility. Loneliness is an unpleasant experience associated with inadequate interpersonal contact. It is widely accepted that loneliness is closely associated with ageing as a consequence of multiple losses – loss of abilities, loss of and changes in personal relationships, loss of relationships with familiar environments and changed contact with friends and relatives resulting in reduced relationships. Changes in the relationship with the environment are regarded as a particular loss by older people, especially if they have to rely on institutionalized care and loose contact with familiar social networks and the free association with other people. Lonely people are isolated people. For the purpose of this study, loneliness is regarded as a relational phenomenon, and the theory of complex responsive processes of relating will be used as the theoretical framework for this study. In an attempt to understand the interpersonal experiences associated with loneliness, a qualitative and exploratory research method was used. The research was conducted in a residential care facility in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group of older people, who was purposively selected for the study, consisted of 10 older persons: 7 female and 3 male and with ages ranging between 62 and 82 years of age. The data was collected by means of various qualitative techniques, including the Mmogo-methodTM and visual drawings. The collected data was analysed by using thematic analysis, visual analysis and key-words-in-context, and crystallization was used to increase the trustworthiness of the findings. Ethical approval for the research project was obtained from the North-West University. Two themes emerged from the findings, being: 1) Relationships are experienced in terms of the interactions in relationships as well as in terms of preferred interpersonal styles; and 2) The relationships experienced in the context of the residential care facility are described as being unsafe and lacking in care, while the environment is described as non-stimulating. Some of the findings are confirmed by existing literature. However, the unique contribution of the study is the finding that the environment in which the relationships are embedded is perceived to be dangerous, and that it is perceived to be a risk to become visible to each other in order to establish meaningful interpersonal relationships. Several suggestions regarding future interventions are made and some limitations of the study are mentioned. The contribution of the study is that loneliness are expressed and described in terms of interpersonal relationships embedded in the broader environment. Thus, the potential of older people to form meaningful interpersonal relationships are limited in the broader environment if the environment is experienced as unsafe and lacking in care. / Thesis (MSc (Research Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Ensamhet har under de senaste åren blivit ett större problem. Om det beror på teknik, ensamboende eller prioriteringar på karriären är svårt att veta, troligtvis på alla dessa. Ensamhet kan leda till allvarliga hälsoproblem, både psykiska och fysiska så som depression och ökad risk för hjärtsjukdomar och stroke. Ensamhet är därför ett folkhälsoproblem som måste hanteras. Den byggda miljön är också något som påverkar människors känsla av ensamhet, det är den sortens ensamhet som märks i offentliga rum. Detta kallas urban loneliness och är den typ av ensamhet som undersöks i detta projekt. Under Covid-19-pandemin rekommenderade Folkhälsomyndigheten social distansering vilket gjorde att fler människor kände sig ensamma. När man träffade andra skulle man helst vara ute i offentliga utrymmen. Det är därför projektet undersöker hur Covid-19 har påverkat betydelsen av offentliga rum. Forskningsfrågan som används är följande. Vilka egenskaper (design och struktur) ska ett offentligt rum ha för att vara attraktivt och motverka urban ensamhet? För att besvara frågan har tre områden i Stockholm använts som fallstudier; Vällingby Centrum, Liljeholmstorget och Sickla Stråket. För att samla information har relevant litteratur och dokument lästs, det har även gjorts en enkätundersökning och direkta observationer inom de tre områdena. Projektet visade att egenskaper i offentliga utrymmen påverkar känslan av ensamhet. Det är dock svårt att veta exakt vilka som är de viktigaste eftersom det är individuellt. Offentliga platser har på något sätt varit viktiga för människor under pandemin. Men på grund av timingen och den korta tidsperioden detta projekt pågår är det svårt att förstå hur mycket och exakt för vem, för att få reda på detta skulle det behövas ytterligare undersökningar. / Loneliness has been an increasing issue during later years in Stockholm. Whether it is because of technology, solo living or career priorities is hard to know, probably all of them. Loneliness can lead to serious health issues, both mental and physical such as depression and increased risk of heart diseases and strokes. Loneliness is therefore a public health problem that needs to be dealt with. The built environment is also something that affects people's feeling of loneliness, this is the kind of loneliness which is felt in public spaces. This is called urban loneliness and is the kind of loneliness which is examined in this project. During the Covid-19 pandemic the Public Health Agency recommended social distancing which created more people feeling lonely. While meeting others one was preferably supposed to be outside in public spaces. This is why the project examines how Covid-19 has affected the importance of public spaces. The research question used is the following.  What characteristics (design and structure) should a public space have to be attractive and counteract Urban loneliness? To answer the question three areas in Stockholm have been used as case studies; Vällingby Centrum, Liljeholmstorget and Sickla Stråket. To gather information relevant literature and documents has been read as well as surveys and direct observations in the three areas. The project showed that elements in public spaces do affect the feeling of loneliness. It is however difficult to know exactly which ones are the most important since it is individual. Public spaces have somehow been important for people during the pandemic. However due to the timing and the short time period of this project it is difficult to understand how much and for whom, in order to find this out, further investigations would be needed.

The object of the research was psychological loneliness and frustration of first-year students. The subject of the research was the correlation between subjective feeling of loneliness and frustration of students. The master's dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters, conclusion, list of references (49 sources) and an Appendix, including the forms of the applied research methods. The volume of the master's dissertation is 77 pages, which contains 8 tables. The introduction reveals the relevance of the research problem, the development of the problem, the purpose and objectives of the research, the object and subject of the research, the main and additional hypotheses are formulated, the methods and the empirical base are specified. In conclusion, the results of the theoretical and empirical parts of the work, as well as conclusions on the hypotheses put forward, the practical significance of the study and the possible prospects for further development of this problem are described in a generalized form. / Объектом исследования явились психологическое одиночество и фрустрация студентов-первокурсников. Предметом исследования стала взаимосвязь субъективного ощущения одиночества и фрустрации у студентов. Магистерская диссертация состоит из введения, трех глав, заключения, списка литературы (49 источников) и приложения, включающего в себя бланки применявшихся методик. Объем магистерской диссертации 77 страница, на которых размещены 8 таблиц. Во введении раскрывается актуальность проблемы исследования, разработанность проблематики, ставятся цель и задачи исследования, определяются объект и предмет исследования, формулируется гипотеза, указываются методики и эмпирическая база. Первая и вторая главы включают в себя обзор иностранной и отечественной литературы по теме исследования. В заключении в обобщенном виде изложены результаты теоретической и эмпирической частей работы, а также выводы по выдвинутой гипотезе, обоснована практическая значимость исследования и описаны возможные перспективы дальнейшей разработки данной проблематики.

Объектом исследования явились психологическое одиночество и комплекс личностных черт «темная триада». Предметом исследования стала взаимосвязь психологического одиночества с личностными чертами «Темной триады» у женщин. Магистерская диссертация состоит из введения, двух глав, заключения, списка литературы (63 источника) и приложения, включающего в себя бланки применявшихся методик. Объем магистерской диссертации 93 страницы, на которых размещены 6 рисунков и 9 таблиц. Во введении раскрывается актуальность проблемы исследования, разработанность проблематики, ставятся цель и задачи исследования, определяются объект и предмет исследования, формулируются основная и дополнительная гипотезы, указываются методы и эмпирическая база, а также этапы проведения исследования, научная новизна, теоретическая и практическая значимость работы. Первая глава включает в себя обзор иностранной и отечественной литературы по теме психологического одиночества и комплекса личностных черт «темной триады». Представлены разделы, посвященные исследованию подходов и типологии в изучении психологического одиночества, исследованию структурных показателей комплекса «темной триады», их взаимосвязь и специфику переживания женского одиночества. Выводы по первой главе представляют собой итоги по изучению теоретического материала. Вторая глава посвящена эмпирической части исследования. В ней представлено описание организации и методов проведенного исследования и результатов, полученных по всем использованным методикам: анкете (пол, возраст, статус в браке, наличие детей, родителей, трудовая занятость), опроснику для определения вида одиночества С. Г. Корчагиной, дифференциальный опроснику переживания одиночества Е.Н. Осина и Д.А. Леонтьева, короткому опроснику темной триады в адаптации М.С. Егоровой, М.А. Ситниковой, О.В. Паршиковой. Также во второй главе представлен корреляционный и сравнительный анализ результатов исследования. В заключении в обобщенном виде изложены результаты теоретической и эмпирической частей работы, а также выводы по выдвинутвм гипотезам, обоснована практическая значимость исследования и описаны возможные перспективы дальнейшей разработки данной проблематики. / The object of the study was psychological loneliness and a complex of personality traits «dark triad». The subject of the study was the relationship of psychological loneliness with the personality traits of the «Dark Triad» in women. The master's thesis consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a list of references (63 sources) and an appendix, which includes forms of the methods used. The volume of the master's thesis is 93 pages, which contain 6 figures and 9 tables. The introduction reveals the relevance of the research problem, the development of the problem, sets the goal and objectives of the study, defines the object and subject of the study, formulates the main and additional hypotheses, indicates the methods and empirical base, as well as the stages of the study, scientific novelty, theoretical and practical significance of the work. The first chapter includes a review of foreign and domestic literature on the topic of psychological loneliness and the complex of personality traits of the «dark triad». The sections devoted to the study of approaches and typology in the study of psychological loneliness, the study of the structural indicators of the «dark triad» complex, their relationship and the specifics of experiencing female loneliness are presented. The conclusions on the first chapter are the results of the study of theoretical material. The second chapter is devoted to the empirical part of the study. It presents a description of the organization and methods of the study and the results obtained by all the methods used: a questionnaire (sex, age, marital status, the presence of children, parents, employment), a questionnaire to determine the type of loneliness by S. G. Korchagina, a differential questionnaire feelings of loneliness E.N. Osina and D.A. Leontiev, a short questionnaire of the dark triad adapted by M.S. Egorova, M.A. Sitnikova, O.V. Parshikova. The second chapter also presents a correlation and comparative analysis of the results of the study. In conclusion, the results of the theoretical and empirical parts of the work, as well as conclusions on the hypotheses put forward, are summarized, the practical significance of the study is substantiated, and possible prospects for further development of this issue are described.

This study investigated the differences between descriptions of the lived experiences of painful loneliness and comfortable aloneness. Loneliness, is documented as a modern-day social problem, associated with psychic pain and suffering and myriad mental and physical health problems. Uncomplicated, comfortable or neutral aloneness, is scarce in the literature, with allusions to the possibility that people may never feel lonely. The 'essences' of the experience ofpainfol loneliness have been gathered from the literature, while the 'essences' of the experience of comfortable aloneness have been gathered interviews with five people who are comfortable or ambivalent about their aloneness. The qualitative methods of heuristic and phenomenological research have been used to interpret and make sense of the raw data generated. It was found that the subjective experiences of aloneness and loneliness are fundamentally different, and that the thoughts, meanings and realities associated with either state are similarly disparate. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study investigated the differences between descriptions of the lived experiences of painful loneliness and comfortable aloneness. Loneliness, is documented as a modern-day social problem, associated with psychic pain and suffering and myriad mental and physical health problems. Uncomplicated, comfortable or neutral aloneness, is scarce in the literature, with allusions to the possibility that people may never feel lonely. The 'essences' of the experience ofpainfol loneliness have been gathered from the literature, while the 'essences' of the experience of comfortable aloneness have been gathered interviews with five people who are comfortable or ambivalent about their aloneness. The qualitative methods of heuristic and phenomenological research have been used to interpret and make sense of the raw data generated. It was found that the subjective experiences of aloneness and loneliness are fundamentally different, and that the thoughts, meanings and realities associated with either state are similarly disparate. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)