Both people living in the COVID-19 epicenter and those who have recently left are at a higher risk of loneliness

There is little empirical data on the heightened risk of loneliness among individuals residing in the COVID-19 epicenter or those who have recently left. This study compared the risk of loneliness in individuals residing in Wuhan, the COVID-19 epicenter in China, and those who had recently left duri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2023-11, Vol.13 (1), p.21145-21145, Article 21145
Main Authors: Xu, Yan-Min, Wang, Ming-Fang, Zhong, Bao-Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/477
692/699
692/700
China - epidemiology
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Loneliness
Loneliness - psychology
multidisciplinary
Outbreaks
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Statistical analysis
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Summary:There is little empirical data on the heightened risk of loneliness among individuals residing in the COVID-19 epicenter or those who have recently left. This study compared the risk of loneliness in individuals residing in Wuhan, the COVID-19 epicenter in China, and those who had recently left during the initial outbreak period to those living in non-epicenter regions. During the COVID-19 outbreak in China in 2020, three samples were obtained using snowball sampling. The samples included 2882 epicenter residents, 1028 left residents, and 2963 non-epicenter residents. Loneliness was assessed using the six-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, with a score of two or more indicating the presence of loneliness. 53.5% and 55.2% of epicenter and recently left residents, respectively, experienced loneliness, which was significantly higher than the 43.9% observed in non-epicenter residents. After adjusting for covariates, the risk of loneliness remained statistically significant for both epicenter and left residents (OR = 1.35, P  
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-47140-6