Abstract
Older people are vulnerable to loneliness and isolation. Solitary seniors are more likely to suffer the feelings of loneliness with inadequate social networks. Based on a face-to-face questionnaire survey with 151 community-dwelling solitary seniors, the present study examined the associations between social support and the sense of loneliness among solitary older adults in Hong Kong. The results showed that poor mental health status, financial inadequacy and weak social support networks were significantly associated with the sense of loneliness of solitary older adults, with social support being the most prominent risk factor. Frequent contacts with siblings, relatives or friends were found to be important sources of social support to combat loneliness. Policy and service implications are discussed.
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Acknowledgement
The work described in this study was supported by a grant from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (1-ZVGD) and a grant from Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (UGC/IDS11/15).
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Bai, X., Yang, S., Wang, F.L., Knapp, M. (2017). Social Support and Sense of Loneliness in Solitary Older Adults. In: Wu, TT., Gennari, R., Huang, YM., Xie, H., Cao, Y. (eds) Emerging Technologies for Education. SETE 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10108. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52836-6_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52836-6_34
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