1. PARENTAL LONELINESS AND HEALTH
Venla Panula, Department of Teacher Education, University of Turku
BACKGROUND
PARTICIPANTS, MEASURES
Loneliness is defined as a perceived lack of desired social relationships. This means that a lonely person may not have any friends at all or they can have social relationships, but consider them unfulfilling. Both of these circumstances make one feel lonely: there is a discrepancy between one's actual and desired social relationships (Junttila 2010, Heinrich & Gullone 2006).
Loneliness is a risk factor to a large amount of different negative consequences. For example, loneliness is connected to depression and poorer physical health (Victor & Yang 2012). In addition, parental loneliness has also been found to be a risk factor to children’s loneliness (Distel et al. 2010).
In this study, WHO’s definition of health is used: health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Participants in the first measurement point (pregnancy)
Mothers: n = 1357; mean age 30,3 years
Fathers: n = 1321; mean age 32,4 years
Pregnancy (20th pregnancy week)
Loneliness
Depression
Social phobia
Relationship dissatisfaction
Health measures
Infancy (child 8 months old)
Toddlerhood (child 18 months old)
AIMS
This study aims to model the interrelations between the following phenomena: loneliness, depression, social phobia, physical and mental health, and parents’ relationship (dis-)satisfaction. The aim is to study the possible risk factors for parental loneliness and also to assess the children’s growth environment. Parental well-being is studied from pregnancy through the child’s infancy and toddlerhood.
This research is done as a part of a large, longitudinal cohort study, the STEPS Study.
ANALYSES
I am conducting structural equation modeling analyses on the data with Mplus at the moment.
Loneliness, depression, social phobia and parental relationship (dis-)satisfaction all correlate well with each other. Now the issue is to find out whether the measures of physical and mental health are applicable to the planned SEM-models.
References
Distel, M. A., Rebollo-Mesa, I., Abdellaoui, A., Derom, C. A., Willemsen, G., Cacioppo, J. T. & Boomsma, D. I Familial resemblance for loneliness. Behavior Genetics 40 (4): 480–494.
Heinrich, L. M. & Gullone, E The clinical significance of loneliness: A literature review. Clinical Psychology Review 26 (6): 695–718.
Junttila, N Social competence and loneliness during the school years. Issues in assessment, interrelations and intergenerational transmission. Turun yliopisto. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, ser. B, tom. 325.
Victor, C. R. & Yang, K The prevalence of loneliness among adults: a case study of the United Kingdom. The Journal of Psychology 146 (1-2): 85–104.
Acknowledgements
This study has been funded by Turku University Foundation and the research foundation of The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare (MLL).
Venla Panula,