The Relation of Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Social Support to Disease Outcomes Among the Elderly.
This abstract comes from the work of J Tomaka from the niversity of Texas in El Paso USA.
OBJECTIVE: This study examined relations between social isolation, loneliness, and social support to health outcomes in a sample of New Mexico seniors.
METHOD: We used random-digit dialing to obtain a random sample of 755 southern New Mexico seniors. Participants answered questions pertaining to demographics, social isolation and loneliness, social support, and disease diagnosis including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, liver disease, arthritis, emphysema, tuberculosis, kidney disease, cancer, asthma, and stroke. The sample allowed for comparison of Caucasian and Hispanic participants.
RESULTS: Correlational and logistic analyses indicated that belongingness support related most consistently to health outcomes. Ethnic subgroup analysis revealed similarities and differences in the pattern of associations among the predictor and outcome variables.
DISCUSSION: The results demonstrate the importance of social variables for predicting disease outcomes in the elderly and across ethnic groups.
The abstract was published in the June 2006 edition of the journal of aging and health. the pubmed identifier is 16648391 and the article starts on page 359.
