IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i22p12027-d680397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the Frequency, Intensity, and Duration of Loneliness: A Latent Class Analysis of Data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Pamela Qualter

    (Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

  • Kimberly Petersen

    (Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

  • Manuela Barreto

    (Psychology Department, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PY, UK)

  • Christina Victor

    (College of Health and Life Sciences, Brunel University, London UB8 3PH, UK)

  • Claudia Hammond

    (BBC Radio 4, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A 1AA, UK)

  • Sana-Arub Arshad

    (Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

Abstract

Almost all measures of loneliness have been developed without discussing how to best conceptualize and assess the severity of loneliness. In the current study, we adapted the four-item UCLA, so that it continued to measure frequency of loneliness, but also assessed intensity and duration, providing a measure of other aspects of loneliness severity. Using data from participants resident in the UK who completed the BBC Loneliness Experiment (N = 36,767; F = 69.6%) and Latent Class Profile Analyses, we identified four groups of people who scored high on loneliness on at least one of the three severity measures. Duration of loneliness often over months or years seemed to be particularly important in distinguishing groups. Further, group membership was predicted by important demographic and psychological variables. We discuss the findings in terms of implications for research and practice. We highlight the need to explore these profiles longitudinally to investigate how membership predicts later mental and physical health, and well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Pamela Qualter & Kimberly Petersen & Manuela Barreto & Christina Victor & Claudia Hammond & Sana-Arub Arshad, 2021. "Exploring the Frequency, Intensity, and Duration of Loneliness: A Latent Class Analysis of Data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:22:p:12027-:d:680397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12027/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12027/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vermunt, Jeroen K., 2010. "Latent Class Modeling with Covariates: Two Improved Three-Step Approaches," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 450-469.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Berlingieri & Matija Kovacic, 2023. "Health and relationship quality of the LGBTQIA+ population in Europe," Working Papers 2023: 29, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    2. Marquez, Jose & Qualter, Pamela & Petersen, Kimberly & Humphrey, Neil & Black, Louise, 2022. "In a lonely place: Neighbourhood effects on loneliness among adolescents," SocArXiv hzer5, Center for Open Science.
    3. Marquez, Jose & Qualter, Pamela & Petersen, Kimberly & Humphrey, Neil & Black, Louise, 2022. "Neighbourhood effects on loneliness among adolescents," SocArXiv hzer5_v1, Center for Open Science.
    4. Casabianca, Elizabeth & Kovacic, Matija, 2024. "Social interactions, loneliness and health: A new angle on an old debate," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1378, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Casabianca, Elizabeth & Kovacic, Matija, 2024. "Historical roots of loneliness and its impact on second-generation immigrants’ health," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 407-437.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fetene B. Tekle & Dereje W. Gudicha & Jeroen K. Vermunt, 2016. "Power analysis for the bootstrap likelihood ratio test for the number of classes in latent class models," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 10(2), pages 209-224, June.
    2. Roberto Rocci & Stefano Antonio Gattone & Roberto Di Mari, 2018. "A data driven equivariant approach to constrained Gaussian mixture modeling," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 12(2), pages 235-260, June.
    3. Layland, Eric K. & Maggs, Jennifer L. & Kipke, Michele D. & Bray, Bethany C., 2022. "Intersecting racism and homonegativism among sexual minority men of color: Latent class analysis of multidimensional stigma with subgroup differences in health and sociostructural burdens," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    4. Jennifer Oser & Marc Hooghe & Zsuzsa Bakk & Roberto Mari, 2023. "Changing citizenship norms among adolescents, 1999-2009-2016: A two-step latent class approach with measurement equivalence testing," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4915-4933, October.
    5. Sasso, Alessandro & Hernández-Alava, Mónica & Holmes, John & Field, Matt & Angus, Colin & Meier, Petra, 2022. "Strategies to cut down drinking, alcohol consumption, and usual drinking frequency: Evidence from a British online market research survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    6. Sarah R Lowe & Ethan J Raker & Mary C Waters & Jean E Rhodes, 2020. "Predisaster predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom trajectories: An analysis of low-income women in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, October.
    7. Aely Park & Youngmi Kim & Jennifer Murphy, 2023. "Adverse Childhood Experiences and Substance Use Among Korean College Students: Different by Gender?," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(4), pages 1811-1825, August.
    8. Haseeb, Attiya & Mitra, Raktim, 2024. "Travel behaviour changes among young adults and associated implications for social sustainability," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    9. Bakk, Zsuzsa & Kuha, Jouni, 2020. "Relating latent class membership to external variables: an overview," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107564, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Herwig Immervoll & Daniele Pacifico & Marieke Vandeweyer, 2019. "Faces of joblessness in Australia: An anatomy of employment barriers using household data," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 226, OECD Publishing.
    11. Chen, Runting & Huang, Yueyi & Yu, Meng, 2021. "The latent profile analysis of Chinese adolescents’ depression: Examination and validation," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Gugerty, Mary Kay & Mitchell, George E. & Santamarina, Francisco J., 2021. "Discourses of evaluation: Institutional logics and organizational practices among international development agencies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    13. Pallant, Jason I. & Pallant, Jessica L. & Sands, Sean J. & Ferraro, Carla R. & Afifi, Eslam, 2022. "When and how consumers are willing to exchange data with retailers: An exploratory segmentation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    14. Tomlinson, Camie A. & Shin, Sunny H. & Corso, Casey & Jiskrova, Gabriela Ksinan, 2024. "Patterns of adverse childhood experiences and mental health symptoms among young adults," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    15. Kondo, Fumiyo N. & Okubo, Taishi, 2022. "Understanding multi-channel consumer behavior: A comparison between segmentations of multi-channel purchases by product category and overall products," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Daxini, Amar & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Ryan, Mary & Buckley, Cathal & Barnes, Andrew P., 2018. "Factors influencing farmers' intentions to adopt nutrient management planning: accounting for heterogeneity," 166th Seminar, August 30-31, 2018, Galway, West of Ireland 276183, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Susan Yoon & Fei Pei & Juan Lorenzo Benavides & Alexa Ploss & Jessica Logan & Sherry Hamby, 2022. "The Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Resilience Profiles on School Outcomes among Children in the Child Welfare System," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-14, May.
    18. Rong Yang & Danlin Li & Jie Hu & Run Tian & Yuhui Wan & Fangbiao Tao & Jun Fang & Shichen Zhang, 2019. "Association between Health Literacy and Subgroups of Health Risk Behaviors among Chinese Adolescents in Six Cities: A Study Using Regression Mixture Modeling," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-14, September.
    19. Egamberdiev, Bekhzod & Bobojonov, Ihtiyor & Kuhn, Lena & Glauben, Thomas, 2023. "Household resilience capacity and food security: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 967-988.
    20. Ehrlich, Oren & Bi, Xiang & Borisova, Tatiana & Larkin, Sherry, 2017. "A latent class analysis of public attitudes toward water resources with implications for recreational demand," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 28(PA), pages 124-132.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:22:p:12027-:d:680397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.