A new study has found that living alone is linked to common mental disorders such as anxiety, mood or substance use disorders . The authors have also identified the main driver of this troubling relationship.
According to some studies, almost a third of people will experience such a disorder in their lifetime. These conditions can have a significant impact on the individual, of course, but due to their high prevalence, they also affect society in general.
Due to the widespread influence of common mental disorders, scientists are interested in understanding the full range of risk factors that contribute to mental health.
Living alone as a risk factor
A new study, the results of which have been published in the journal PLOS ONE , reviews this possibility. The authors of the work conclude that there is a link between living alone and common mental disorders. In addition, it affects all age groups and sexes, and its main driver is loneliness.
The number of people living alone is steadily growing in much of the Western world. This is due to a number of reasons, including an aging population, the fact that people tend to marry at an older age, and rising divorce rates.
Previous studies had investigated this relationship, but most focused on older adults and generally focused on a single mental condition: depression .
The authors of the new study wanted to fill in these empty gaps. They looked for links between living alone and common mental disorders in general, and investigated what factors seemed to be influencing this relationship.
The data
Scientists at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)analyzed data from 20,503 adults, aged 16 to 74, living in England.The data comes from three national psychiatric morbidity surveys that the experts conducted in 1993, 2000, and 2007. Participants completed the revised Clinical Interview List questionnaires, which assessed whether they had experienced neurotic symptoms in the previous week.
The surveys also collected data on a wide variety of variables, including height and weight, education level, employment status, alcohol and drug use, social support, and feelings of loneliness.
As expected, the authors found that the number of people living alone has grown steadily.In 1993, 8.8% lived alone. In 2000, 9.8% and in 2007, 10.7% lived alone.
Their analysis also showed that in all age groups and sexes, there was a significant association between living alone and having a common mental disorder. The size of this relationship was quite similar in the three surveys.
Common mental disorders were more common among those who lived alone than those who did not:
In 1993:19.9% vs. 13.6%who lived with more people
In 2000:23.2% vs. 15.5%who lived with more people
In 2007:24.7% vs. 15.4%who lived with more people
The problem of loneliness
When the scientists delved into the relationship between common mental disorders and living alone, they found that loneliness explained 84% of the association. Previous studies have shown that loneliness is linked to depression and anxiety.
Of course , not everyone who lives alone is lonely or lonely . However, for those who are, certain interventions are available to cope with loneliness, such as talk therapies, social care arrangements, and animal-based interventions.
The researchers acknowledge certain limitations to the study. For example, it was a cross-sectional study, which means you looked at a snapshot of people at a given time. The authors call for longitudinal studies to determine how this relationship might develop over time.
As with any study of this nature, it is not possible to assess cause and effect: did people develop a common mental disorder because they lived alone, or did they develop a mental disorder and then decide to live alone?
Or, perhaps, someone with a predisposition to common mental disorders is more likely to want to live alone. As always, scientists will need to do more work to fill in the gaps.
Referencia: Relationship between living alone and common mental disorders in the 1993, 2000 and 2007 National Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys. Louis Jacob , Josep Maria Haro, Ai Koyanagi Published: May 1, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215182
