Lonely in the City–Sociodemographic Status and Somatic Morbidities as Predictors of Loneliness and Depression among Seniors–Preliminary Results

Abstract

Up to a third of the population of older adults has been estimated to suffer from feelings of loneliness, which is considered a risk factor of depression. The aim of this paper is to compare the perceived level of loneliness and depression in seniors living in the country and in the cities and assess somatic morbidity and sociodemographic status as predictors of loneliness and depressiveness. n = 92 older adults in primary care units filled out a set of questionnaires: authors’ survey on sociodemographic data and morbidities, Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI, to measure depressiveness) and De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (DJGLS, to assess loneliness). There was a strong, positive and statistically significant correlation between the BDI and DJGLS scores (R = 0.855, p < 0.001). City residents had on average higher BDI and DJGLS scores. Linear regression models were constructed to predict BDI and DJGLS scores. The set of statistically significant predictors were similar for BDI and DJGLS. Sociodemographic status and somatic morbidities accounted for around 90% of variance of depressiveness and loneliness scores in the studied group. Living alone was found to be the strongest relative predictor of both loneliness and depressiveness in the studied sample of the older adults. Our current results suggest that there might be a need to improve social support in the late adulthood as an intervention to diminish the sense of loneliness and depressiveness.