Victor Christina R, Dobbs Christine, Gilhooly Kenneth, Burholt Vanessa
Department of Clinical Sciences, Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 7PH UK.
Centre for Innovative Ageing, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP UK.
Eur J Ageing. 2020 Apr 7;18(1):5-16. doi: 10.1007/s10433-020-00564-9. eCollection 2021 Mar.
We investigated the prevalence of loneliness among 1206 adults aged 40 + from six minority communities in England and Wales: Black Caribbean, Black African, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese. Replicating the approach from the previous studies, we demonstrate robust acceptability, reliability and validity for both the six-item De Jong Gierveld (DJG) and single-item loneliness scales in our six ethnic groups. The prevalence of loneliness using a single-item question (loneliness reported as often/always) ranges from 5% (Indian) to 14% (Chinese) compared with approximately 5% for the general population aged 40 + in Britain. Levels of loneliness are very much higher using the DJG scale. Using a loneliness threshold score of 5 +, the percentage ranged from 13% (Indian) to 36% (Chinese). We explored the importance of six established loneliness vulnerability factors for our sample using regression modelling. Three factors were not associated with loneliness-number of children, gender and health rating, and three factors were protective: younger age, being married and low financial strain. The addition of ethnicity did not change these relationships or enhance statistical power of our models. Being a member of the African Caribbean group was protective against loneliness but not for the other groups included in our study. We suggest that exposure to loneliness vulnerability factors rather than ethnicity per se or measurement artefact underpins differences in loneliness across ethnic groups.
我们调查了英格兰和威尔士六个少数族裔社区中1206名40岁及以上成年人的孤独感患病率，这些族裔包括：加勒比黑人、非洲黑人、印度人、巴基斯坦人、孟加拉人和华人。我们沿用先前研究的方法，证明了六项版的德容·吉尔维尔德（DJG）孤独量表和单项孤独量表在我们研究的六个种族群体中都具有很强的可接受性、可靠性和有效性。使用单项问题（报告经常/总是感到孤独）得出的孤独感患病率在5%（印度人）至14%（华人）之间，而英国40岁及以上的普通人群这一比例约为5%。使用DJG量表得出的孤独感水平要高得多。以孤独阈值分数5+来衡量，孤独感比例从13%（印度人）到36%（华人）不等。我们使用回归模型探究了六个既定的孤独感易感性因素对我们样本的重要性。三个因素与孤独感无关——孩子数量、性别和健康评级，另外三个因素具有保护作用：年龄较小、已婚和经济压力小。加入种族因素并没有改变这些关系，也没有增强我们模型的统计效力。属于非洲加勒比群体可以预防孤独感，但对我们研究中的其他群体则不然。我们认为，接触孤独感易感性因素而非种族本身或测量误差是不同种族群体孤独感差异的基础。
