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. 2025 Feb;30(2):338-352.
doi: 10.1177/13591053241238127. Epub 2024 Mar 25.

Guidelines for evaluating and reporting social isolation and loneliness interventions

Eric C Schoenmakers  1 , Mathias Lasgaard  2   3 , Joanna McHugh Power  4
Affiliations

Guidelines for evaluating and reporting social isolation and loneliness interventions

Eric C Schoenmakers et al. J Health Psychol. 2025 Feb.

Abstract

Given the unpleasant nature of social isolation and loneliness (SIL) and their negative effects on health and wellbeing, interventions are needed. However, persistent issues in the design, evaluation, and reporting of SIL interventions preclude conclusive evidence and commentary on the effectiveness of SIL interventions. Here, we propose guidelines for evaluating SIL interventions, firstly by operationalising them into two categories: (1) interventions aiming to reduce SIL as a primary outcome and (2) interventions aiming to improve non-SIL outcomes in the lives of individuals experiencing SIL. Secondly, we evaluate instruments for measuring SIL and research designs for studying intervention effectiveness. Thirdly, guidelines for reporting information about the intervention, study design, results, and discussion in SIL intervention studies are presented. These guidelines will help researchers to better and more consistently report on SIL interventions and improve comparability of SIL interventions, ultimately contributing to the improvement of interventions and to the mitigation of SIL.

Keywords: interventions; loneliness; measurement; reporting; social isolation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Decision tree whether something constitutes as a SIL intervention (Category I and II) and what to measure in an evaluation of a SIL intervention.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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