CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 174COVID-19 and Mental HealthHealth disparities and outcomesCOVID-19 epidemiological studies

Loneliness in the COVID-19 pandemic: Associations with age, gender and their interaction

Open access
Wickens, Christine M., McDonald, André J., Elton-Marshall, Tara, Wells, Samantha, Nigatu, Yeshambel T., Jankowicz, Damian, Hamilton, Hayley A.·2021·Journal of Psychiatric Research
DOI 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.01.047PMC PMC8635289
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Loneliness is associated with mental health and thus is of particular concern in the COVID-19 pandemic, due to physical distancing restrictions and shelter-in-place orders. The current study assessed the associations of age, gender and their interaction with loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, controlling for other sociodemographic variables. A pooled sample of 3,012 English-speaking Canadian adults aged 18+ years completed a web-based survey in one of three waves between May 8 and June 23, 2020. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the associations of loneliness with age and gender controlling for marital status, household income, education, living alone, employment situation, and survey wave. A likelihood ratio test assessed the model with interaction between age and gender included. Approximately 8.4% of the sample reported feeling lonely 5+ days in the past week. The regression model with main effects found greater odds of loneliness among women than men (AOR = 1.76, 95%CI = 1.32, 2.34) and among all age groups younger than 60 years compared to those aged 60+ years (p = 0.002). In the final regression model, a significant interaction effect between age and gender on loneliness was found. The interaction showed that women had greater odds of loneliness than men among those aged 18-29 years (AOR = 3.53, 95%CI = 1.69, 7.37) and 60+ years (AOR = 2.62, 95%CI = 1.33, 5.17). Special consideration of loneliness among younger and older adult women is needed in service planning. Given inconsistencies with pre-pandemic studies, detailed data collected during the current crisis is essential to inform proactive resource allocation to prevent and treat mental health consequences of the pandemic.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.01.047

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Younger adults seem to suffer more from loneliness than Older Adults.

    “Firstly, in comparison to Older Adults, younger ones seem to suffer more from loneliness, which has been related to poorer mental health [48,49].”

    From At the Peak of the Second Wave of COVID-19, Did Millennials Show Different Emotional Responses from Older Adults? (2022) · cites this paper as [49]

    The Discussion reports that loneliness during COVID-19 restrictions was highest among adults aged 18–29 and lowest among those aged 60+. The Introduction also links loneliness to poorer mental health. But the citing sentence leaves the pandemic context unstated; the Discussion notes that pre-pandemic studies typically found greater loneliness among older adults. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The true impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health is yet to be seen.

    “In conclusion, “the true impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on mental health is yet to be seen” (Wickens et al., 2021, p.107).”

    From Adolescents' longitudinal trajectories of mental health and loneliness: The impact of COVID‐19 school closures (2022) · cites this paper as Wickens et al., 2021

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Bu F. Steptoe A. Fancourt D. Who is lonely in lockdown? Cross-cohort analyses of predictors of loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic Unpublished manuscript https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.14.20101360v1.full.pdf+html 2020 PMC7405905 32768621 · DOI
  2. Canadian Press A Timeline of Events in Canada's Fight against COVID-19 2020 https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/a-timeline-of-events-in-canadas-fight-against-covid-19-2

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Wickens, C. M., McDonald, A. J., Elton-Marshall, T., Wells, S., Nigatu, Y. T., Jankowicz, D., & Hamilton, H. A.
Affiliations
  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
  • Western University (CA)
Corresponding author
Wickens, Christine M.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Psychiatric Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-04
Volume
136
Pages
103-108
ISSN
0022-3956 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.01.047
PMC
PMC8635289
OpenAlex
W3126820036
Cited by
174
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 16
FWCI
23.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Psychiatric Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
Keywords
loneliness, COVID-19 pandemic, age differences, gender differences, age-gender interaction, young women, older women, mental health, social distancing, shelter-in-place orders, Canadian adults
MeSH terms
Physical Distancing, COVID-19, Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Canada, Female, Humans, Loneliness, Male, Middle Aged, Sex Factors, Young Adult, Pandemics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review