Zaccaria Daniele, Guaita Antonio, Vaccaro Roberta, Casanova Georgia, Abbondanza Simona, Pettinato Laura, Cerati Gabriele, Rolandi Elena, Sala Emanuela
University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, Centre of Competence on Ageing, Manno, Switzerland.
Golgi Cenci Foundation, Abbiategrasso, Italy.
Contemp Clin Trials Commun. 2020 Jul 15;19:100615. doi: 10.1016/j.conctc.2020.100615. eCollection 2020 Sep.
An ageing society poses unprecedented challenges to societies. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including Social Networking Sites (SNSs), may contribute to contrast loneliness and social isolation in old age. Despite of the potentialities of SNSs, there is only a handful of studies assessing the causal relationship of SNS use and older people's well-being. This paper aims to provide further evidence on the design of randomised controlled trials exploring the causal impact of SNS use on loneliness and social isolation in old age.
The Aging in a Networked Society-Social Experiment Study (ANS-SE) is a randomised controlled trial conducted on people aged 75 and over residing in a town located in the Milan area (Italy) aiming to assess the impact of SNS use on loneliness and social isolation (i.e. the primary outcomes of this study). The study is constituted of two stages, i.e. the baseline and the follow up. The experiment is structured into one treatment group and two control groups; the interventions are the attendance to a course on SNS use (T1) and lifestyle education and brain functioning (C1). The inactive control group (C) is constituted of a waiting list. We will perform bivariate and regression analysis.
The study has been approved by the Ethic Committee of the University of Milano Bicocca (prot. 431/2019) and was registered at Clinical Trials.gov (NCT04242628). Written consent was obtained from all respondents. Results from the study will be discussed with the local community and stakeholders, presented in national and international conferences and published in leading peer-review journals. The consent forms, the anonymised dataset, and the relevant statistical codes will be deposited with the Italian Unidata archive, also in charge of releasing the data to the public, upon a short embargo period.
老龄化社会给各个社会带来了前所未有的挑战。包括社交网站（SNS）在内的信息通信技术（ICT）可能有助于缓解老年人的孤独感和社会隔离。尽管社交网站具有诸多潜力，但评估社交网站使用与老年人幸福感之间因果关系的研究却寥寥无几。本文旨在为探索社交网站使用对老年人孤独感和社会隔离的因果影响的随机对照试验设计提供更多证据。
“网络社会中的老龄化——社会实验研究”（ANS-SE）是一项针对居住在意大利米兰地区某城镇的75岁及以上老年人进行的随机对照试验，旨在评估社交网站使用对孤独感和社会隔离（即本研究的主要结果）的影响。该研究由两个阶段组成，即基线阶段和随访阶段。实验分为一个治疗组和两个对照组；干预措施分别是参加社交网站使用课程（T1）以及生活方式教育和大脑功能训练（C1）。非活动对照组（C）由一个等待名单组成。我们将进行双变量和回归分析。
该研究已获得米兰比可卡大学伦理委员会批准（编号431/2019），并在ClinicalTrials.gov上注册（NCT04242628）。已获得所有受访者的书面同意。研究结果将与当地社区和利益相关者进行讨论，在国内和国际会议上展示，并发表在领先的同行评审期刊上。同意书、匿名数据集和相关统计代码将存放在意大利Unidata存档库中，在短暂的禁运期后，该存档库也负责向公众发布数据。
