Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-twqc4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-10T19:47:20.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Longitudinal associations of hopelessness and loneliness in older adults: results from the US health and retirement study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2017

Amber M. Gum Open the ORCID record for Amber M. Gum [Opens in a new window] ,
Sharon Shiovitz-Ezra  and
Liat Ayalon
Amber M. Gum*
Affiliation:
Department of Mental Health Law and Policy, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
Sharon Shiovitz-Ezra
Affiliation:
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Liat Ayalon
Affiliation:
Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Amber M. Gum, Associate Professor, Department of Mental Health Law and Policy, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, 13301 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MHC 2632A, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA. Phone: 1-813-974-1980; Fax: 1-813-974-6411. Email: [email protected].
Get access

Abstract

Background:

Hopelessness and loneliness are potent risk factors for poor mental and physical health in later life, although the nature of their relationships with each other over time is not clear. The aim of the current study was to examine relationships between hopelessness and loneliness over an eight-year study period.

Methods:

Three waves of data from the US Health and Retirement Study (2006, 2010, 2014) were used to test a cross-lagged model of hopelessness and loneliness (N = 7,831), which allows for the simultaneous evaluation of the reciprocal associations of loneliness and hopelessness. Age in 2006, gender, years of education, number of medical conditions, and depressive symptoms were included as covariates.

Results:

The autoregressive effects of loneliness (B (SE) = 0.63 (0.02), p < 0.001) and hopelessness (B (SE) = 0.63 (0.02), p < 0.001) were substantive and significant across the three waves, pointing to the stability of both constructs over the eight-year study period. The lagged effect of loneliness on hopelessness was non-significant (B (SE) = 0.05 (0.03), p = 0.16), whereas the lagged effect of hopelessness on loneliness was significant (B (SE) = 0.01 (0.01), p = 0.03). These lagged effects were not significantly different from each other, however, χ2 (1) = 2.016, p = 0.156.

Conclusions:

Participants who were more hopeless tended to become lonelier four years later, but lonelier participants did not become more hopeless four years later. Findings are tentative given the small magnitude and lack of difference between the cross-lagged effects. Future directions include replicating these findings in different samples and time frames, examining potential mechanisms of relationships between hopelessness and loneliness, and potential intervention strategies that might improve both conditions.

Keywords

hopelessnesslonelinesshealth and retirement studylongitudinal
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 29 , Issue 9 , September 2017 , pp. 1451 - 1459
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barg, F. K., Huss-Ashmore, R., Wittink, M. N., Murray, G. F., Bogner, H. R. and Gallo, J. J. (2006). A mixed-methods approach to understanding loneliness and depression in older adults. Journals of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 61, S329–S339.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., Beck, J. S. and Newman, C. F. (1993). Hopelessness, depression, suicidal ideation, and clinical diagnosis of depression. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 23, 139–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D. and Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: the hopelessness scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 861–865.Google Scholar
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C. and Thisted, R. A. (2010). Perceived social isolation makes me sad: 5-year cross-lagged analyses of loneliness and depressive symptomatology in the chicago health, aging, and social relations study. Psychology and Aging, 25, 453.Google Scholar
Cheavens, J. S. and Guter, M. M. (in press). Hope therapy. In Lopez, S. J. and Gallagher, M. W. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Hope. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cheavens, J. S., Cukrowicz, K. C., Hansen, R. and Mitchell, S. M. (2016). Incorporating resilience factors into the interpersonal theory of suicide: the role of hope and self-forgiveness in an older adult sample. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 72, 58–69.Google Scholar
Cheavens, J., Gum, A. and Snyder, C. R. (2000). The hope scale. In Maltby, J., Lewis, C. A. and Hill, A. (eds.), A Handbook of Psychological Tests (pp. 248–258). Lampeter, Wales, UK: Edwin Mellen.Google Scholar
Conner, K. O., Mckinnon, S. A., Ward, C. J., Reynolds, C. F. Iii and Brown, C. (2015). Peer education as a strategy for reducing internalized stigma among depressed older adults. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 38, 186.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cukrowicz, K. C., Cheavens, J. S., Van Orden, K. A., Ragain, R. M. and Cook, R. L. (2011). Perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation in older adults. Psychology and Aging, 26, 331–338.Google Scholar
De Jong Gierveld, J. (1998). A review of loneliness: concept and definitions, determinants and consequences. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 8, 73–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennis, M., Wakefield, P., Molloy, C., Andrews, H. and Friedman, T. (2005). Self-harm in older people with depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 186, 538–539.Google Scholar
Everson, S. A., Kaplan, G. A., Goldberg, D. E., Salonen, R. and Salonen, J. T. (1997). Hopelessness and 4-year progression of carotid atherosclerosis the kuopio ischemic heart disease risk factor study. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, 17, 1490–1495.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finkel, S. E. (1995). Causal Analysis with Panel Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Fromm-Reichmann, F. (1959). Loneliness. Psychiatry, 22, 1–15.Google Scholar
Golden, J. et al. (2009). Loneliness, social support networks, mood and wellbeing in community-dwelling elderly. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 24, 694–700.Google Scholar
Gum, A. M. (in press). Promoting hope in older adults. In Lopez, S. J. and Gallagher, M. W. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Hope. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haatainen, K. M. et al. (2003). Gender differences in the association of adult hopelessness with adverse childhood experiences. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 38, 12–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawkley, L. C. and Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). Loneliness matters: a theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 40, 218–227.Google Scholar
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T. and Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10, 227–237.Google Scholar
Hu, L. and Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. E., Waite, L. J., Hawkley, L. C. and Cacioppo, J. T. (2004). A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys: results from two population-based studies. Research on Aging, 26, 655–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaremka, L. M. et al. (2013). Loneliness promotes inflammation during acute stress. Psychological Science, 24, 1089–1097.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joiner, T. E. and Rudd, M. D. (1996). Disentangling the interrelations between hopelessness, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 26, 19–26.Google Scholar
Klausner, E. J., Clarkin, J. F., Spielman, L., Pupo, C., Abrams, R. and Alexopoulos, G. S. (1998). Late-life depression and functional disability: the role of goal-focused group psychotherapy. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 13, 707–716.3.0.CO;2-Q>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marsh, H. W. and Hau, K.-T. (1996). Assessing goodness of fit: Is parsimony always desirable? The Journal of Experimental Education, 64, 364–390.Google Scholar
Marty, M. A., Segal, D. L., Coolidge, F. L. and Klebe, K. J. (2012). Analysis of the psychometric properties of the interpersonal needs questionnaire (inq) among community-dwelling older adults. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68, 1008–1018.Google Scholar
Mcmillan, D., Gilbody, S., Beresford, E. and Neilly, L. (2007). Can we predict suicide and non-fatal self-harm with the beck hopelessness scale? A meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine, 37, 769–778.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meller, I., Fichter, M. M. and Schroppel, H. (2004). Mortality risk in the octo- and nonagenarians according to psychic symptoms, cause and place of death. Longitudinal results of an epidemiological follow-up-community-study. European Journal of Psychiatry, 18, 44–59.Google Scholar
Meredith, W. (1993). Measurement invariance, factor analysis and factorial invariance. Psychometrika, 58, 525–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muthén, L. K. and Muthén, B. O. (1998–2012). Mplus User's Guide, 7th edn. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.Google Scholar
Netz, Y., Goldsmith, R., Shimony, T., Arnon, M. and Zeev, A. (2013). Loneliness is associated with an increased risk of sedentary life in older israelis. Aging & Mental Health, 17, 40–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neufeld, E., O'rourke, N. and Donnelly, M. (2010). Enhanced measurement sensitivity of hopeless ideation among older adults at risk of self-harm: reliability and validity of likert-type responses to the beck hopelessness scale. Aging & Mental Health, 14, 752–756.Google Scholar
O'luanaigh, C. et al. (2012). Loneliness and vascular biomarkers: the dublin healthy ageing study. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 27, 83–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schreiber, J. B., Nora, A., Stage, F. K., Barlow, E. A. and King, J. (2006). Reporting structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis results: a review. Journal of Educational Research, 99, 323–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, C. R. et al. (1991). The will and the ways: development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 570–585.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steverink, N., Westerhof, G. J., Bode, C. and Dittmann-Kohli, F. (2001). The personal experience of aging, individual resources, and subjective well-being. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 56, P364–P373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thurston, R. C. and Kubzansky, L. D. (2009). Women, loneliness, and incident coronary heart disease. Psychosomatic Medicine, 71, 836.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Orden, K. A., Stone, D. M., Rowe, J., McIntosh, W. L., Podgorski, C. and Conwell, Y. (2013). The senior connection: design and rationale of a randomized trial of peer companionship to reduce suicide risk in later life. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 35, 117–126.Google Scholar
Vanderweele, T. J., Hawkley, L. C., Thisted, R. A. and Cacioppo, J. T. (2011). A marginal structural model analysis for loneliness: implications for intervention trials and clinical practice. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 79, 225.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. B. and Herzog, A. R. (1995). Overview of the health measures in the health and retirement study. Journal of Human Resources, S84–S107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar