Socialinės izoliacijos, vienišumo ir gyvenimo kokybės ryšys vyresniame amžiuje / ; The relation of social isolation, loneliness and quality of life in older adults.

The aim of the research is to analyse links of social isolation, subjective sense of loneliness and quality of life in older age. In total, 68 subjects participated in the research: 11 men and 57 women. The average age of the respondents was 66 years, and ages varied from 60 to 87 years old. The research was conducted on Facebook where the questionnaire was posted. Methods: The Modified Social Isolation Index (Smith & Victor, 2018) was used for the evaluation of the social isolation. A questionnaire (consisting of 4 subscales) prepared by the World Health Organisation on the basis of Life Quality-100 (WHOQOL-100) was used for the evaluation of the quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF). Loneliness was evaluated by using the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russel, 1980). Correlation was used to monitor the links between the variables. Results. Research has shown that the subjective feeling of loneliness and social isolation in the older age are related: the greater the loneliness, the less communication with relatives, children, grandchildren and friends; individuals living alone are more lonely than those who live with at least one other person. More frequent communication with relatives is a key factor in protecting loneliness. The connection between the subjective sense of loneliness and the quality of life in the older age has been established: a lonely person evaluates badly his or her health, psychological domain, social relationships and the environment. Furthermore, a lonely person evaluates his quality of life worse. The link between social isolation and quality of life in older age has been identified: a socially isolated person underestimates his or her psychological domain, social relationships and general quality of life. The subjective feeling of loneliness has more to do with the quality of life assessment than with social isolation, for example, physical health is more related to loneliness than to social isolation. And the area of social relations (i.e. personal relationships and social support) has the ...