孤独
荟萃分析
医疗保健
公共卫生
医学
人口
心理学
老年学
临床心理学
环境卫生
精神科
护理部
经济增长
内科学
经济
作者
Fuschia M. Sirois,Janine Owens
标识
DOI:10.1080/17437199.2021.1986417
摘要
Loneliness is a growing public health concern that is associated with a range of negative health outcomes. The extent to which loneliness may also be associated with greater use of primary health care remains unclear. The present meta-analysis aimed to address this gap by quantifying research on the association of loneliness to primary health care use. The database searches yielded 23 eligible studies with 25 effects, total N = 113,639. A random effects meta-analysis revealed a small positive average effect size (ravg = .094; 95% CI [.07, .12])between loneliness and the use of primary care that increased in magnitude as the proportion of females in the samples increased. Studies that used objective measures of primary care use yielded effects that were significantly larger than those using self-report measures. The effects were robust to differences in age and type of health-care systems, and the type of loneliness scale (single versus multi-item). The findings from this first comprehensive meta-analysis of the association of loneliness with use of primary care indicate that people who experience loneliness make a greater number of visits to primary-care practitioners. This evidence highlights the practical impact of loneliness on health-care use when viewed at the population level.
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