The relationship of social isolation and sleep in older adults: evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies

Abstract

Objectives This study aimed to explore the relationship between social isolation and sleep in later life and the role of loneliness in this relationship. Methods In Study 1, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the correlation between social isolation and sleep in community-dwelling older adults (N = 108). This relationship was assessed using subjective and objective measures. Moreover, we examined the mediating role of loneliness cross-sectionally (Study 1) and longitudinally (Study 2). Longitudinal study was based on three waves of data from the National Scale Life, Health, and Aging Project (N = 1, 554). Results The results showed that social isolation was robustly associated with sleep in the general population of older adults. Specifically, subjective social isolation was associated with subjective sleep, and objective social isolation was associated with objective sleep. The results of the longitudinal study showed that loneliness mediated the reciprocal link between social isolation and sleep across time after controlling for autoregressive effects and basic demographics. Conclusions These findings address the gap in the literature on the link between social isolation and sleep in older adults, extending the understanding of improvement in older adults' social networks, sleep quality, and psychological well-being.