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The Association between Adverse Childhood and Adulthood Experiences, Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression among Young Adults in South Korea

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  • Sung Man Bae

    (Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Dankook University, Cheonan 31116, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

This study examined the association between social isolation, loneliness, and depressive symptoms among young adults in South Korea after controlling for sociodemographic variables, adverse child and adult experiences, and perceived health status. The researcher analyzed the data of 2014 young adults aged 18–34 years from the Youth Social Economic Survey using hierarchical multiple regression analysis conducted with IBM SPSS Statistics 28.0. Among the sociodemographic variables, sex, education, and household income were significantly related to depressive symptoms. Females reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than males, and those attending college or having a college (or higher) degree reported lower levels of depressive symptoms than those with a high-school diploma or lower. Higher household income was associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Perceived health status was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, while adverse childhood and adulthood experiences, social isolation, and loneliness were positively associated with it. Among the major independent variables, loneliness was most strongly related to depressive symptoms, whereas social isolation had the weakest relevance to it. The prediction model proposed explained 32.7% of the variance in depressive symptoms and was considered good. Therefore, focusing on loneliness may be more important than focusing on social isolation to prevent and deal with depressive symptoms among young adults.

Suggested Citation

  • Sung Man Bae, 2023. "The Association between Adverse Childhood and Adulthood Experiences, Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Depression among Young Adults in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(19), pages 1-11, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:19:p:6900-:d:1255684
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Debanjan Banerjee & Mayank Rai, 2020. "Social isolation in Covid-19: The impact of loneliness," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 66(6), pages 525-527, September.
    2. Mengsha Luo & Rodlescia S Sneed, 2023. "Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Depressive Symptoms: A Twelve-Year Population Study of Temporal Dynamics," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 78(2), pages 280-290.
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    Cited by:

    1. Min Jin Jin & Sung Man Bae, 2023. "The Effect of Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Physical Activity on Depressive Symptoms of Older Adults during COVID-19: A Moderated Mediation Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(1), pages 1-11, December.

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