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Review
. 2020 Apr 4;7(1):2055102920913235.
doi: 10.1177/2055102920913235. eCollection 2020 Jan-Jun.

Loneliness and sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Sarah C Griffin  1 , Allison B Williams  1 , Scott G Ravyts  1 , Samantha N Mladen  1 , Bruce D Rybarczyk  1
Affiliations
Review

Loneliness and sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Sarah C Griffin et al. Health Psychol Open. .

Abstract

Despite the mounting evidence linking loneliness with health, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain obscure. This systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between loneliness and one potential mechanism-sleep-identified 27 relevant articles. Loneliness correlated with self-reported sleep disturbance (r = .28, 95% confidence interval (.24, .33)) but not duration, across a diverse set of samples and measures. There was no evidence supporting age or gender as moderators or suggesting publication bias. The longitudinal relationship between loneliness and sleep remains unclear. Loneliness is related to sleep disturbance, but research is necessary to determine directionality, examine the influence of other factors, and speak to causality.

Keywords: health; insomnia; loneliness; mechanisms; sleep.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
PRISMA flow diagram.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Forest plot of the effect sizes (self-reported sleep quality and insomnia symptoms) of studies included in the meta-analysis. Shading signifies the type of outcome, in order from top: mean effect sizes (black, dotted line), sleep quality (red), insomnia symptoms (blue). The third study presented in Hom, Chu et al. paper (light blue) is an outlier and was excluded from main analyses.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Forest plot of additional sleep outcome effect sizes. Each sleep outcome is labeled in the key. Shading signifies type of sleep outcome, in order from top: objective sleep quality (red), sleep duration (medium green), time in bed (light green), change in sleep (yellow), sleep satisfaction (purple), sleep adequacy (navy blue).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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