Abstract
To explore the association between the personal social capital and loneliness among the widowed older adults in China. Data from 1497 widowed older adults were extracted from China’s Health-Related Quality of Life Survey for Older Adults 2018. The Chinese version of the Personal Social Capital Scale (PSCS-16) was used to evaluate the participants’ status of bonding and bridging social capital (BOC and BRC). Loneliness was assessed by the short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8). Multiple linear regression models were established to examine the relationship between social capital and loneliness. The BOC and BRC of rural widowed older people were significantly lower than those of widowed older people in urban areas, while loneliness of rural widowed older people was higher than that of widowed older people in urban areas. The result of the final model showed that loneliness of rural participants was significantly associated with both BOC (B = 0.141, p = 0.001) and BRC (B = −0.116, p = 0.003). The loneliness of the urban widowed sample had no association with both BOC and BRC (p > 0.05). These findings suggested that more social support and compassionate care should be provided to enrich the personal social capital and thus to reduce loneliness of widowed older adults, especially those in rural areas.
Highlights
Loneliness is one of the worldwide public health issues among older people [1]
Under the premise that a small amount of evidence has shown that the social capital of older people in general was associated with loneliness, we considered how widowed older people lack spousal intimacy, which may increase their loneliness and need for other relationships compared with the general older population, that is, they may require more support from other social capital
It was seen that 20.41% of all respondents were still working, with respondents in rural areas working at a greater proportion than their urban counterparts
Summary
Loneliness is one of the worldwide public health issues among older people [1]. A nationally representative study reported that 43% of older people in the United States felt lonely [2]; among the 25 European nations, loneliness of older adults was estimated to range from 19.6% to 34.0% [3]. Loneliness can cause a host of damages to both physical and mental health of older people, which may lead to a series of physiological effects and accelerate the ageing process [4]. Evidence has shown that loneliness may increase the chances of coronary disease, stroke [5], dementia [6] and depression [7] for older people. The consequences of chronic loneliness may further lead to the increase of the financial burden and psychological pressure for both older adults and their families. Social resources, including social capital, are related to the loneliness [12]
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