An NHMRC funded five-year project
Three studies aim to understand the relationship between social isolation, loneliness, and chronic illness in older adults.
Chronic illnesses are common, particularly in later life. They have been shown to increase the risk of developing social isolation, loneliness, anxiety and depression. Similarly, loneliness and social isolation have been shown to exacerbate chronic illnesses.
This National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)-funded study aims to increase our understanding of the factors that link these physical and mental health conditions together. Understanding these links will help us to develop more targeted interventions to reduce loneliness and social isolation among people with chronic illness and create better outcomes for people experiencing these conditions.
Interrelated studies
This research will address a current lack of representation of individuals living with chronic illnesses through three interrelated studies.
This study will use a series of focus groups with consumers (ie people with lived experience of chronic illnesses) to identify possible mechanisms underlying bidirectional relationships between chronic illness outcomes, social isolation and loneliness.
We anticipate that a range of cognitive, behavioural, emotional and health factors will be reported by participants as contributing to this bidirectional relationship.
The results of this study will inform the other two planned studies in this research stream.
Progress: We have conducted four focus groups with 20 participants. Preliminary findings have been used to inform the development of Study 2 and 3 below. The final results are currently being analysed.
This will be a four-year online survey, completed annually by participants.
This study will test the directional relationships between specific health and psychological mechanisms (informed by findings from Study 1) that are proposed to underlie the relationships between social isolation, loneliness and chronic illness outcomes that might inform treatment targets.
The knowledge from this study will lead to increased understanding of how these variables fit together and interact with each other to increase risk for social isolation and loneliness, as well as the impacts on disease outcomes over the long term.
Furthermore, this study will help identify the most important mechanisms driving increases in social isolation and loneliness, and reductions in chronic illness outcomes. These key mechanisms will be targeted in a new loneliness module added to our established Chronic Conditions Course in Study 3.
Progress: This study has ethics approval and recruitment for this study will commence shortly. If you or someone you know are interested in participating and completing this survey, please contact AgeingWisely@mq.edu.au.
This study will run from years two to five of the research stream, and will be a randomised controlled trial, comparing an enhanced and a standard version of our cognitive behavioural program for people with chronic illness.
We will use our established and publicly available online and teletherapy Chronic Conditions Course (developed with NHMRC funding) that promotes psychological adjustment to chronic illness and has demonstrated efficacy in reducing depression, anxiety and disability.
The program will be enhanced to include additional therapy content to target factors identified in Study 1 and the first year of Study 2 as being linked to social isolation, loneliness and poorer disease outcomes.
Progress: This study is in the design phase.
Research team
We are a multidisciplinary team of researchers, consumers, and consumer advocates. Our team members have expertise in:
- chronic illness management
- clinical trials
- consumer codesign and engagement
- epidemiology
- longitudinal modelling
- longitudinal surveys
- multimorbidity
- primary care
- identification of psychological mechanisms underlying, and treatment of the following in older adults:
- depression
- anxiety
- social isolation
- loneliness
Lead investigator: Professor Viviana Wuthrich
- Professor Blake Dear
- Professor Louise Sharpe (University of Sydney)
- Distinguished Professor Ron Rapee
- Professor Simon Willcock
- Dr Daniel Costa (University of Sydney)
- Associate Professor Milena Gandy
- Dr Amelia Scott
- Dr Alana Fisher
- Dr Jessamine Chen
- Ms Lucinda Brogden
- Ms Christine Walker
- Professor Mike Jones
- Dr Gabrielle Picard
- Dr Joanne Dudeney.
References
¹ Hunter, M. L., Knuiman, M. W., Musk, B. A., Hui, J., Murray, K., Beilby, J. P., ... & James, A. L. (2021). Prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in Australian baby boomers: the Busselton healthy ageing study. BMC public health, 21(1), 1-12.
² Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2021. Australian Burden of Disease Study 2018: key findings. Australian Burden of Disease Study series 24. Cat. no. BOD 30. Canberra: AIHW.