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Loneliness and its Association with Health Behaviors in People with a Lived Experience of a Serious Mental Illness

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Abstract

To explore the association between loneliness and efficacy to engage in health behaviors that are known to reduce the risk of early mortality in people with serious mental illness (SMI). This secondary data analysis was based on a cross-sectional study of 113 participants with SMI residing in New Hampshire. Ordinary Least Squares regressions were used to examine bivariate relationships between variables of interest. Participants had a primary mental health diagnosis of major depressive disorder (37.2%), schizophrenia spectrum disorder (28.3%), bipolar disorder (29.2%), or posttraumatic stress disorder (5.3%). High levels of loneliness were associated with low levels of self-efficacy to manage chronic diseases (p = 0.0001), as well as low levels of self-efficacy to manage psychological well-being (R2 = .31; F = 9.49, p = 0.0001; RMSE = 1.66). Loneliness may serve as a barrier to healthy behaviors, and thus, contribute to early mortality among people with SMI. The growing body of literature that demonstrates the importance of addressing loneliness in people with SMI should stimulate policymakers and researchers to target loneliness as a mechanism to address early mortality in people with SMI.

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Role of Funding Sources

Research was supported in part by National Institutes of Mental Health Award K01MH117496.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

    Karen L. Fortuna, Joelle Ferron, Cynthia L. Bianco, Meghan M. Santos & Sarah I. Pratt

  2. University of New Hampshire, Department of Social Work, Pettee Hall, 55 College Road Durham, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    Ashley Williams

  3. Washington State University, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave, Vancouver, WA, 98686, USA

    Michael Williams

  4. University of Georgia, School of Social Work, 279 Williams St, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    George Mois

Authors
  1. Karen L. Fortuna
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  2. Joelle Ferron
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  3. Cynthia L. Bianco
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  4. Meghan M. Santos
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  5. Ashley Williams
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  6. Michael Williams
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  7. George Mois
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  8. Sarah I. Pratt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karen L. Fortuna.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

This research involved human participants.

Informed Consent

Following the receipt of institutional review board approval in 2014, recruitment for this study began in February 2015 and continued through December 2018. Service users from the study site who met eligibility criteria were provided a description of the intervention and study procedures. Competence to provide informed consent was established by a Mini Mental Status Exam score ≥ 24. After informed consent was obtained, a baseline interview was scheduled.

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Fortuna, K.L., Ferron, J., Bianco, C.L. et al. Loneliness and its Association with Health Behaviors in People with a Lived Experience of a Serious Mental Illness. Psychiatr Q 92, 101–106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09777-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09777-8

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