Liu Jinyuan, Chen Ming, Wu Hao, Cai Hanchang, Tu Shengjia, Lee Ellen, Zhang Xinlian
Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Gen Psychiatr. 2025 Jul 13;38(4):e102055. doi: 10.1136/gpsych-2025-102055. eCollection 2025.
Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation, which has been considered the latest global health epidemic exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, affecting nearly two-thirds of older adults. Some profound health implications carried by loneliness include depression, cognitive impairment, hypertension and frailty. Across the world, there is no consensus definition of loneliness, and its measure is based on the phenomenological perspective of the individual. The 20-item University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale version 3 (UCLA-20) is the most common measure. This scale demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties but is too long and complex for a phone interview. This paper addresses the increasing need to shorten this scale by adopting classical item response theory and network psychometrics to advance scale development. Through an item reduction analysis, we trimmed the original scale into an effective short form, which is as valid as the original one. With respondents' time at a premium in most research nowadays, this short-form scale is an efficient and practical alternative to the original UCLA-20.
孤独是对孤立的一种复杂且通常令人不快的情绪反应，它被认为是由2019冠状病毒病大流行加剧的最新全球健康流行病，影响了近三分之二的老年人。孤独所带来的一些严重健康问题包括抑郁、认知障碍、高血压和身体虚弱。在全球范围内，对于孤独没有统一的定义，其衡量基于个体的现象学视角。20项的加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校孤独量表第3版（UCLA - 20）是最常用的测量工具。该量表展示了可接受的心理测量特性，但对于电话访谈来说太长且太复杂。本文通过采用经典项目反应理论和网络心理测量学来推进量表开发，以满足缩短该量表的日益增长的需求。通过项目删减分析，我们将原始量表精简为一个有效的简短形式，其有效性与原始量表相当。鉴于在当今大多数研究中受访者的时间很宝贵，这个简短形式的量表是原始UCLA - 20的一种高效且实用的替代方案。
