Loneliness, social support, social isolation and wellbeing among working age adults with and without disability: Cross-sectional study.
Eric Emerson, Nicola Fortune, Gwynnyth Llewellyn and 1 others
PMID 32843311WHAT IT FOUND
Working-age adults with disability reported more loneliness, less support and more isolation than adults without disability.
Loneliness was linked to lower life satisfaction, worth, happiness and wellbeing, more strongly than low support or isolation.
Key findings
01Adults with disability reported loneliness at 17.2%, low perceived social support at 15.5% and social isolation at 7.1%, compared with 4.2%, 6.5% and 4.5% among adults without disability.
02After adjustment for demographics and living circumstances, loneliness showed the largest prevalence rate ratio at 3.14, compared with 1.86 for low perceived social support and 1.20 for social isolation.
03For life satisfaction, worth, happiness and anxiety, loneliness had a significantly greater association with lower wellbeing than low perceived social support, which in turn had a greater association than social isolation, and disability status did not moderate these associations.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot show that disability or low social connectedness causes lower wellbeing. The response rate was low: 17.9% for households and 14.3% for individual adults, and the survey moved from face-to-face to online self-completion, so non-response bias is possible. The survey could not separate results by impairment type, so it does not say which types of disability had the highest risk. Income data were not available, so the analysis could not fully account for socio-economic position. The sample was working-age adults aged 16 to 64 in England, and the authors say more research is needed to know whether results generalize across different types of impairments.
Declared interests
The research was supported by Australian National Health and Medical Research Council grant APP1116385. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the adjusted loneliness rate ratio of 3.14 as proof that disability causes loneliness or that reducing loneliness will improve wellbeing. The study is cross-sectional and did not test an intervention.