Loneliness and its correlates among Bangladeshi older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

Sabuj Kanti Mistry; A R M Mehrab Ali; Uday Narayan Yadav; Md Nazmul Huda; Saruna Ghimire; Manika Saha; Sneha Sarwar; Mark F Harris

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-19376-1

Loneliness and its correlates among Bangladeshi older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

Sci Rep. 2022 Sep 2;12(1):15020. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-19376-1.

Authors

Sabuj Kanti Mistry^{1

2

3

4}, A R M Mehrab Ali⁵, Uday Narayan Yadav^{6

7}, Md Nazmul Huda^{5

8}, Saruna Ghimire⁹, Manika Saha¹⁰, Sneha Sarwar¹¹, Mark F Harris⁶

Affiliations

¹ ARCED Foundation, 13/1 Pallabi, Mirpur-12, Dhaka, Bangladesh. smitra411@gmail.com.
² Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. smitra411@gmail.com.
³ BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Medona Tower, Bir Uttam AK Khandakar Road, Dhaka, 1213, Bangladesh. smitra411@gmail.com.
⁴ Department of Public Health, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. smitra411@gmail.com.
⁵ ARCED Foundation, 13/1 Pallabi, Mirpur-12, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁶ Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
⁷ National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
⁸ Translational Health Research Institute, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbeltown, NSW, 2560, Australia.
⁹ Department of Sociology and Gerontology and Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Human-Centred Computing, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3145, Australia.
¹¹ Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of loneliness and its associated factors among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. This cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2020 among 1032 older Bangladeshi adults aged 60 years and above through telephone interviews. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect information on participants' characteristics and COVID-19-related information. Meanwhile, the level of loneliness was measured using a 3-item UCLA Loneliness scale. More than half (51.5%) of the older adults experienced loneliness. We found that participants formally schooled [adjusted odds ratio (aOR = 0.62, 95% CI 0.43-0.88)] and received COVID-19-related information from health workers (aOR = 0.33, 95% CI 0.22-0.49) had lower odds of being lonely during the pandemic. However, older adults living alone (aOR: 2.57, 95% CI 1.34-4.94), residing distant from a health facility (aOR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.02-2.08) and in rural areas (aOR = 1.53, 95% CI 1.02-2.23) had higher odds of loneliness than their counterparts. Likewise, odds of loneliness were higher among those overwhelmed by COVID-19 (aOR = 1.93, 95% CI 1.29-2.86), who faced difficulty in earning (aOR = 1.77, 95% CI 1.18-2.67) and receiving routine medical care during pandemic (aOR = 2.94, 95% CI 1.78-4.87), and those perceiving requiring additional care during the pandemic (aOR = 6.01, 95% CI 3.80-9.49). The findings suggest that policies and plans should be directed to reduce loneliness among older adults who require additional care.

MeSH terms

Aged
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Loneliness*
Pandemics
Prevalence