Reducing loneliness amongst community dwelling older adults who participate in physical activity

Abstract

Loneliness can be seen as a lack in participation or social connectedness with society (Jack, 2013). This manifestation may one day become one of the geriatric giants found within older adults. Physical activity in recent studies has been identified as a possible means of reducing loneliness levels amongst older adults. Hence, the PICO question identified was “Does encouraging physical activity reduce loneliness levels in older adults?”. This included community dwelling older adults, aged above 60, as the population. Intervention being PA, comparison included other activities instead of PA such as focus groups and outcome as reducing loneliness levels. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to find literature that is deemed fit to answer this PICO question. The methods of appraisal used included the CASP tool as a means of validating the literature used in this study in terms of reliability. The main results of the literature obtained were quite mixed. Unfortunately, there was little coherence between the seven studies chosen to answer the PICO question above. This means that a clear conclusion cannot be drawn unless recommending several changes to be done. The results consisted of a majority of finding a negative correlation between PA and loneliness, other studies did not manage to produce any significant results and one even was not able to calculate the results. It has been noted that to gain a more reliable conclusion, further research must be done. This was listed as the main recommendation of this study, especially in view of randomised controlled trials since they offer the means of a control group, making them one of the highest study designs in the hierarchy of evidence.