Associations between loneliness and perceived social support and outcomes of mental health problems: a systematic review

By Jingyi Wang, Farhana Mann, B. Lloyd‐Evans, Ruimin Ma, Sonia Johnson. BMC Psychiatry, 2018

1,237 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundThe adverse effects of loneliness and of poor perceived social support on physical health and mortality are established, but no systematic synthesis is available of their relationship with the outcomes of mental health problems over time. In this systematic review, we aim to examine the evidence on whether loneliness and closely related concepts predict poor outcomes among adults with mental health problems.MethodsWe searched six databases and reference lists for longitudinal quantitative studies that examined the relationship between baseline measures of loneliness and poor perceived social support and outcomes at follow up. Thirty-four eligible papers were retrieved. Due to heterogeneity among included studies in clinical populations, predictor measures and outcomes, a narrative synthesis was conducted.ResultsWe found substantial evidence from prospective studies that people with depression who perceive their social support as poorer have worse outcomes in terms of symptoms, recovery and social functioning. Loneliness has been investigated much less than perceived social support, but there is some evidence that greater loneliness predicts poorer depression outcome. There is also some preliminary evidence of associations between perceived social support and outcomes in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders.ConclusionsLoneliness and quality of social support in depression are potential targets for development and testing of interventions, while for other conditions further evidence is needed regarding relationships with outcomes.

Subfields: Health, Psychiatry and Mental health, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c12bc3c6314a3431ea2e8aa59556e4ad8bab8a87

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Citations in the corpus

• Social support and recovery from mental health problems: a scoping review (2021, background): “…with the notion that social support plays a substantial role in attaining and maintaining good mental health, in the prevention of and recovery from mental health problems (Topor et al. 2011; UN 2020; Wang et al. 2018) and have a potential in reducing inequalities in health (Stoltenberg 2015).”
• The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations (2024, background): “The majority of studies investigating longitudinal associations be­ tween loneliness or social isolation and mental health have fo­ cused on depression, reporting a longitudinal (and bi­directional 222­224 ) association of loneliness with depression onset 214 , sever­ ity 225 and recovery 226 .”