The relationships between social support and loneliness: A meta-analysis and review

“These findings are consistent with the broader literature, in which meta-analytic findings show significant negative relations with family support (Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Caregivers who perceive a robust support system often experience reduced emotional exhaustion and anxiety, enabling them to maintain a healthier mental state and greater motivation during caregiving (Zhang and Dong, 2022).”

“Individuals with higher levels of social support have been reported to report lower levels of loneliness [25].”

“According to this model, phubbing might act as a significant stressor that would further have a significant influence on phubbees’ psychological distress and life satisfaction, since perceived phubbing leads to loneliness, which challenges one’s coping resources [53, 55].”

“being than other types of social support [27], so the present study explores the concept of perceived social support, which is an individual’s subjective feelings and emotional experiences of the social support he or she may receive during interpersonal interactions in social life.”

“34) [52], which is comparable to the present study’s findings (r = from −0.”

“One key indicator of relationship quality is access to social support, with low support being strongly associated with loneliness (Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“One may, for example, have a strong family support system, but when the system is compromised by unsatisfactory relationships with friends (which become more important in youth and adulthood — Zhang & Dong, 2022), a sense of loneliness may still be dominant.”

“42 Second, social network serves as a partial rather than a complete mediator in path 2.”

“However, Pfeiffer et al. found that there was no gender difference in self-stigma [79].”

“Decreased perceived social support leads to decreased life satisfaction, which is associated with negative psychological states such as loneliness, depression and anxiety (Reid et al., 2022; Zhang and Dong, 2022).”

“Moreover, the negative association between loneliness and social support was stronger among the rural Chinese populations than the urban ones [70].”

“24 It is likely that aspects of mental health, such as mental distress and social support, are important to consider when assessing correlates of lone-liness in a Canadian post-secondary context.”

“Social support is a factor that is not only effective in alleviating loneliness [35], but it also plays a key role in the social connection and physical and mental health of the population [36].”

“It can be seen that perceived social support emphasizes students’ psychological experience or emotional support of social support resources [17, 19].”

“For example, friend support is more important in reducing loneliness than other supports (i.e., family and significant other support) among older adults, since the importance of social support from specific sources varies across different developmental stages [91].”

“In contrast to loneliness, social support has consistently been identified as a protective factor for mental health, buffering the harmful effects of stress and loneliness (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Uchino, 2006; Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Therefore, to address within-study dependencies in effect-size estimates, we employed the meta-analytic technique of robust variance estimation (Hedges et al., 2010; Tanner-Smith & Tipton, 2014; Xie et al., 2020; Zhang & Dong, 2022; Zhang et al., 2022).”

“Yet, low social support is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the experience of loneliness (Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Although factors such as loneliness and social support are closely linked, and both are supported by cognitive theory that relies heavily on perceived, subjective evaluation of social networks (Zhang and Dong 2022), the biological processes between these factors appear to be distinct.”

“In addition, SS may assuage feelings of loneliness (Holt-Lunstad, 2017; Lasgaard et al., 2010; Zhang & Dong, 2022), another known negative-correlate of LS (e.g., Goodwin et al., 2001; Salimi, 2011).”

“Social support is defined as the perceived availability or momentary level of receipt of social contacts to fulfill specific functions [9], and it is an important indicator of social relationships [10].”

“Loneliness and social support have an inverse relationship: people who feel socially supported are less subject to loneliness (Matthews et al., 2016; Teo et al., 2013; Zhang and Dong, 2022).”

“Hence, perceived lack of social support and connection have negative effects on an individual’s life, which often can manifest as mental health disorders, including EDs (Levine, 2012 ; Zhang & Dong, 2022 ).”

“On the other hand, social support exhibits a negative correlation with loneliness and can directly alleviate the feelings of loneliness (Lu et al. 2021; Zhang and Dong 2022).”

“26,27 The calculations indicated that 200 patients were required for this study.”

“33,36 Immigrants are more susceptible to lower levels of social support because of disruptions in their social network and the challenges of establishing friendships in a new country.”

“Meta-analysis demonstrated a strong negative correlation between family and friendship support and loneliness [41].”

“Research further suggests that lower levels of social support may be associated with greater loneliness [36].”

“Perceived social support in non-sport contexts has also been negatively associated with loneliness, depending on the source of support, locality, and socio-demographic factors (Lee & Goldstein, 2016; Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Positive social bonds promote resilience and enhance well-being, while social isolation and loneliness are significant risk factors for poor physical and mental health [1 – 4].”

“41 However, there is a lack of research on mediating the relationship between loneliness on social support and daytime sleepiness.”

“This indicates that as individuals’ perceptions of available social support decrease, experiences of loneliness increase, consistent with well-established evidence in the literature [26, 66].”

“Friends, however, are often rated higher than parents for overall support [96], and the relationship between friend support and loneliness is more robust than it is for either family or significant other support [81,84].”

“This relationship may be attributed to the strong connection between loneliness and social support (Solomon et al., 2015; Zhang and Dong, 2022 ).”

“Extensive research has also shown that substantial social support is closely correlated with enhanced physical and mental wellbeing in older adults, as well as successful ageing (39–41).”

“Previous research has identi fi ed social support as a critical predictor of loneliness, with higher levels of social support negatively correlated with loneliness (23).”

“29,30 Mehrabian and James 31 introduced the SOR framework as a theoretical lens to examine the effects of external stimuli on an individual ’ s internal processes.”

“…has been measured in ways that could disproportionately focus on reactive sources of support (e.g. emotional or instrumental received support, social network size) (Zhang & Dong, 2022), and generally underexamined factors that might provide proactive sources of support (e.g. relationship quality).”

“The economic development gap between urban and rural areas led to higher medical and education services in urban areas, which further resulted in population mobility mainly from rural to urban areas in China [69,70].”

“As research by Zhang and Dong (2022) that the intensity of friends' support for loneliness is higher than family support and significant other support.”

“73 It is notable that poor mental health literacy was a risk factor for higher loneliness.”

“…support overlaps with both functional and structural support, as it involves assistance provided when needed, whereas perceived support reflects the expectation that help will be available during times of need and can be concep-tualised through constructs such as loneliness [13, 17, 22, 23].”

“At the social level, psychological and public health research frequently examined received and perceived social support, which is generally associated with better mental health and more resilient outcomes [27–29].”

“At the initial level, a significant negative correlation was identified: individuals with higher levels of loneliness perceive lower levels of social support (2).”

“Additionally, elderly individuals living alone may be more inclined to reduce social interactions or outdoor activities, which increases their sense of loneliness and creates a more closed-off lifestyle (Scarantino et al., 2022; Zhang and Dong, 2022).”

“Promoting positive social ties through social interaction is a key protective factor against loneliness [6–8].”

“Regarding mental health, perceived social support is associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety, reduced loneliness [28,29], higher self-esteem, and better sleep quality [30–33].”

“A lack of such support may lead patients to be more likely to be isolated [22, 23].”

“Second, implementing strategies to reduce loneliness and enhance social support is critical [68, 69].”

“The intensity of relationship between friend support and lone-liness was higher compared with that of other support (i.e., family and significant other support) (Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Loneliness can differ depending on social roles [27].”

“52 In both samples, perceived social support was found to be a joint protective factor for resilience and self-efficacy.”

“While enhancing social support is generally thought of as a way to reduce loneliness, certain factors (e.g., urban vs. rural residential status [21]) have been shown to moderate the relationship between perceived social support and loneliness, and a person with high levels of social support may…”

“…rural contexts, it has been observed that social interaction, especially during childhood and old age, benefits from the availability of essential services, such as shops and public transportation, as well as meeting spaces, like squares, community centers or well-maintained parks (21, 22, 39, 86).”

“Moreover, future works will require multidepartment cooperation to assess their needs, provide individualised care and love and offer incentives in order to reduce their psychological burden, improve their quality of life and enable them to engage in healthcare with a healthy mind.”

“…2022 KEYWORDS Post-traumatic stress; discrimination; loneliness; Puerto Ricans social support has been primarily conceptualized as a contributor to individuals’ feelings of loneliness versus the other way around (Hombrados-Mendieta et al., 2013; S. Zhang et al., 2018; X. Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“Improving social support has been shown to reduce levels of social isolation and loneliness [18].”

“Similarly, strong family support serves as a protective factor against loneliness [20–22], providing emotional stability and reducing the likelihood of mental health issues [23–25].”

“This fi nding is consistent with evidence showing that loneliness in youth is shaped by long-term interpersonal trajectories and broader social ecologies that extend beyond school-based activities (29, 30, 36).”

“We hypothesized that pre-infection social support may confound the association between loneliness and long COVID through associations of low social support with post-infection loneliness [25] and indirect associations of low social support with long COVID through pre-infection loneliness [26].”

“Studies have found that higher levels of perceived social support are significantly negatively correlated with loneliness, with friends support playing a stronger role than family support [111].”

“Importantly, loneliness has been linked to adverse outcomes in higher education, including increased anxiety and depression, lower academic persistence, and reduced well-being 12 .”

“In addition, comorbidities may lead to decreased patient confidence in treatment, further exacerbating FCR[31].”

“…social interactions and support systems, and the lack of an effective social support may aggravate their psychological distress, leading to an inability to participate in normal daily activities, thus increasing the risk of loneliness and hopelessness, which is a risk factor for SI [52, 53].”

“Having friends and relatives near when in need, performing charitable acts, and being caring towards others greatly increase our well-being (Amati et al., 2018; Azizi et al., 2017; Fernandez-Portero et al., 2023; Jigani et al., 2024; Moeini et al., 2018; Samreen & Majeed, 2019; Zhang & Dong, 2022).”

“On the other hand, social support can be understood as the opposite of loneliness, but a lack of it is not necessarily accompanied by experiencing loneliness (Zhang & Dong, 2022).”