Florida State University College of Medicine, United States.
Florida State University College of Medicine, United States.
J Affect Disord. 2022 Jul 15;309:211-220. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.04.084. Epub 2022 Apr 26.
Sense of purpose, the feeling that one's life is goal-oriented and driven, tends to be protective for psychological health. Less is known about its relation with social health, particularly loneliness. We test whether the cross-sectional association between purpose and loneliness is replicable and whether purpose protects against the development of incident loneliness over time.
Participants from 36 cohorts (total N = 135,227; age range 18-109) reported on their sense of purpose, loneliness, and psychological distress. Follow-up measures of loneliness were available in 28 cohorts that ranged from six weeks to 15 years. Prospective, random-effect meta-analysis was used to summarize the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations from each cohort.
Sense of purpose was associated significantly with less loneliness in all 36 cohorts, controlling for sociodemographic factors (meta-analytic mean effect estimate = -0.31, 95% CI = -0.34, -0.29, p < .001). This association was stronger among participants experiencing concurrent severe psychological distress. Sense of purpose was protective against the development of new incident loneliness (meta-analytic mean hazard ratio estimate = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.82, 0.87, p < .001). Age did not moderate any of the associations.
Limitations include the lack of lower-income countries. The mechanisms that explain this association also need to be identified in future research.
Sense of purpose is associated with less loneliness and with protection against developing loneliness over time, associations that replicated across cohorts from North America, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Sense of purpose may be a useful target of intervention to prevent or reduce loneliness, especially among individuals suffering from psychological distress.
目标感是指生活有目标和动力的感觉，它往往对心理健康具有保护作用。然而，人们对它与社会健康（尤其是孤独感）的关系知之甚少。我们检验了目标感与孤独感之间的横断面关联是否具有可重复性，以及目标感是否能随着时间的推移预防孤独感的发生。
来自 36 个队列的参与者（共有 135227 人，年龄范围为 18-109 岁）报告了他们的目标感、孤独感和心理困扰。28 个队列提供了孤独感的随访测量数据，随访时间从 6 周到 15 年不等。使用前瞻性随机效应荟萃分析汇总了每个队列的横断面和纵向关联。
在控制了社会人口因素后，所有 36 个队列的目标感均与孤独感呈显著负相关（荟萃分析平均效应估计值=-0.31，95%置信区间=-0.34，-0.29，p<0.001）。在同时经历严重心理困扰的参与者中，这种关联更强。目标感可以预防新的孤独感的发生（荟萃分析平均危险比估计值=0.85，95%置信区间=0.82，0.87，p<0.001）。年龄并没有调节任何关联。
本研究的局限性包括缺乏低收入国家的数据。在未来的研究中，还需要确定解释这种关联的机制。
目标感与孤独感呈负相关，与随着时间的推移预防孤独感的发生有关，这些关联在来自北美、南美、欧洲和中东的队列中得到了复制。目标感可能是预防或减少孤独感的一个有用的干预靶点，尤其是在那些患有心理困扰的人群中。
