Loneliness among Elderly

Abstract

Ageing is a series of processes that begins with life and continues throughout the life cycle. Beyond the biological changes, life transitions such as retirement, relocation and urbanization influence the lives of elderly people and put them at risk for loneliness. The feeling of loneliness has many deleterious consequences. Hence the present study aims to assess loneliness among elderly people. The sample of the study is 400 elderly people living in the randomly selected wards of Tirupati. The perceived loneliness scale developed by Jha (1997) was used to assess the loneliness among elderly. Results revealed that 17% of the elderly had a high level of loneliness, most of the elderly (67%) had a moderate level of loneliness and 16 % had a low level of loneliness. Female elderly, elderly with lower education levels, who are suffering from chronic illness, had obtained significantly higher mean scores on loneliness.