WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Loneliness in older adults has been identified as an important public health issue in many countries. Widowhood is a time when many older people experience loneliness. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: Little is known about strategies that are effective in mitigating experiences of loneliness and this paper explores this with older people who have been through the process. The narratives of the older people in this study described a trajectory in which loneliness was experienced as both a loss of spouse and a loss of routines that enabled them to maintain connections with others. This trajectory moved onto the establishment of new routines that enabled connections to be developed. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Loneliness is strongly associated with depression and anxiety in the elderly and mental health nurses should be encouraged to screen for loneliness when undertaking assessments. Interventions that facilitate the development of meaningful routines could be integrated into mental health nursing care of older people.
Background Loneliness in older people is a public health concern in many Western countries. While not necessarily a symptom of mental disorder, it is often associated with depression and anxiety. Widowhood is a transition period during which many older people experience acute loneliness but over time develops strategies to manage it. Little is known about effective strategies that older people have used to manage the experience. The strategies older people used to manage this was the focus of this paper. Aim The aim was to examine older widows' experiences of loneliness. Design The design of this study was a qualitative narrative analysis with thematic analysis and the participants were 40 older widow/widowers aged between 70 and 97 years. Findings The study found that the participants negotiated the experience of loneliness following widowhood from an acute phase of experiencing an absence and the associated loss of routine connection to the establishment of new routines that provided new connections and a new sense of identity as an individual rather than a couple. Conclusions It is important for mental health nurses to screen for loneliness and be able to facilitate interventions that may alleviate the experience of loneliness.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 September 2016.
All research outputs
#23,294,844
of 34,357,314 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing
#1,102
of 1,536 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#212,936
of 333,586 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing
#18
of 26 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,357,314 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 30th percentile – i.e., 30% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,536 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.1. This one is in the 25th percentile – i.e., 25% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,586 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 26 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
