Outcomes
- Results by mental health symptom or disorder were categorized as follows:
Depression. Forty-five studies examined depressive symptoms and loneliness; only 6 studies included children age <10. Most reported a moderate to large correlation (0.12 ≤ r ≤ 0.81), and most of them included a measure of depressive symptoms. The association was stronger in older and female participants. Loneliness was associated with depression in 12 longitudinal studies that followed participants for 1 to 3 years. However, 3 studies (2 in children and 1 in adolescents) found no association between loneliness and depression at follow-up.
Anxiety. Twenty-three studies examined symptoms of anxiety and found a small to moderate correlation between loneliness/social isolation and anxiety (0.18 ≤ r ≤ 0.54), with duration of loneliness being more strongly associated with anxiety than intensity of loneliness. However, social anxiety or generalized anxiety were associated more with loneliness ([0.33 ≤ r ≤ 0.72] and [r = 0.37, 0.40], respectively). Three longitudinal studies found associations between loneliness and subsequent anxiety, and 1 study did not find an association between loneliness at age 5 and increased anxiety at age 12.
Mental health and well-being. Two studies found negative associations between social isolation/loneliness and well-being and mental health.
Conclusions/limitations
There is decent evidence of a strong association between loneliness/social isolation in childhood/adolescence and the development of depression, with some suggestion of increased rates in females. However, there was a small to moderate association with anxiety with increased rates in males. The length of social isolation was a strong predictor of future mental illness. Children who experienced enforced quarantine were 5 times more likely to require mental health services for posttraumatic stress symptoms.
Continue to: The compiled evidence presented in this study...