Qualter Pamela, Verity Lily, Walibhai Wahida, Fuhrmann Delia, Riddleston Laura, Alam Iqra, Conway Jasmine, Lau Jennifer Y F
Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Psychology Department, King's College London, London, UK.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2025 Feb;1544(1):42-54. doi: 10.1111/nyas.15269. Epub 2025 Jan 28.
The overall goal of this paper is to enhance the understanding and measurement of loneliness by identifying key experiential characteristics of loneliness in children and adolescents, and determine whether there is a need for refined assessment tools that accurately capture that experience. In Study 1, we synthesized the qualitative research on the child and youth experience of loneliness and found shared characteristics of loneliness, with some differences related to developmental changes (e.g., understanding of contexts influencing the experience of loneliness). In Study 2, we reviewed the items from loneliness questionnaires for children and youth and found they do not fully capture the affective dimension of loneliness, that is, the breadth of emotions associated with loneliness. That gap could lead to an incomplete understanding of the phenomenon, potentially undermining the validity of research findings and the effectiveness of interventions designed to alleviate loneliness because they underplay the distress of the experience for children and young people. Addressing this shortcoming should include the development and/or refinement of measurements of loneliness for children and youth, enhancing the accuracy and relevance of loneliness assessments.
本文的总体目标是通过识别儿童和青少年孤独感的关键体验特征，增进对孤独感的理解和测量，并确定是否需要完善的评估工具来准确捕捉这种体验。在研究1中，我们综合了关于儿童和青少年孤独体验的定性研究，发现了孤独感的共同特征，以及一些与发育变化相关的差异（例如，对影响孤独体验的背景的理解）。在研究2中，我们回顾了儿童和青少年孤独感问卷中的项目，发现它们没有充分捕捉到孤独感的情感维度，即与孤独感相关的情感广度。这一差距可能导致对该现象的理解不完整，有可能破坏研究结果的有效性以及旨在减轻孤独感的干预措施的有效性，因为这些措施淡化了儿童和年轻人在这种体验中的痛苦。解决这一缺陷应包括开发和/或完善针对儿童和青少年的孤独感测量方法，提高孤独感评估的准确性和相关性。
