Zach's Annotated Bibliography

My first article was “Loneliness in assisted living facilities: An exploration of the group process”. The opening was enlightening discussing how more than 1 in 3 residents in assisted living facilities may suffer from loneliness and only 1 of 22 group interventions in assisted living facilities alleviated loneliness. The one standout intervention was one that facilitated cognitive and social interactions across individuals. The goal of this paper was to learn about the effectiveness and functionality of the circle of friends group model for community living in assisted living facilities comparing lonely individuals to cognitively impaired individuals. The qualifications to determine if individuals met the criteria for participation as “lonely” in their mental state was the use of the “Mini mental state exam” that had to have results between 25 and 30. Six to eight participants, with no one joining after the start of interventions, met up in a group once a week, 12 times for 3 months. Groups all had facilitators that were nurses, social workers or gerontologists that had the participants reflect on their memories and share with the group facilitating peer to peer interactions with the goal of eventually becoming unnecessary for the function of the group. In the first phase, Group members were invited to discuss their feelings of loneliness. The topic was something as simple as group names built social cohesion and interactions were then generalized outside of the group. Another topic was biographical stories were made using a map (really cool idea!!!). The second phase had participants strive towards commonalities and address conflicts and the lack of energy when coming to the group. The group also had the growing pains of intrusive staff, bad moods, and general pain. Over 60% of participants continued to meet after the end of the groups. Both cognitively impaired individuals and lonely individuals took strides towards meaningful interactions.

This article has a lot of great implications and considerations about what I should do. Those that are cognitively impaired need a reminder from the staff. The staff member can’t intervene or facilitate too much as that makes the individuals lose the empowerment, that they worked hard to build, in their group. After the service activity, it is important to clearly inform staff of the necessity for those that interact to lead the conversations on their own terms and not take over. This article also had the awesome idea of building a biographical map, I really think that’d be a cool thing to facilitate with an individual or group. Success after the project relies on the interactions of individuals that might feel loneliness after the conclusion of the facilitation.  

Jansson, A., Karisto A., & Pitkälä, K., (2021). Loneliness in assisted living facilities: An exploration of the group process, Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 28(5), 354-365. https://doi.org/10.1080/11038128.2019.1690043

This article had more of a focus on the adverse effects of social isolation on mental health. The opening section of the article gave background research that described similar concepts to other sources, with facts like one in five Americans will be older adults by 2040 and social isolation is associated with an increased risk of mortality. The article then transitions into “Socioemotive Theory” that states an emphasis on small tight knit long-time friends and family with older adults. To further clarify their points, the author split social isolation into two main constructs, subjective social isolation and objective social isolation. Subjective social isolation is defined as the quality of relationships and one’s own perspectives on said individual relationships. This also encompasses loneliness. Objective social isolation is defined as physical separation and lack of interactions with others. The study hypothesis indicated that objective social isolation and subjective social isolation correlates with higher levels of depressive state and psychological distress. CES-D Scale to determine mental state and 0 to 3 rating system and a 5 point Likert scale for a measure of psychological distress. Through the results the study found a significant relationship between mental health problems and one’s perception of subjective and objective social isolation. The hypothesis was partially supported with subjective social isolation and ones perception on the construct of loneliness being statistically significant in relation to someone’s mental wellbeing, those who viewed themselves as “lonely” were experiencing symptoms of depression.

A big quote takeaway was “the relationship between objective social isolation and mental health is mediated by subjective social isolation” which stands out because going back to a previous article, everyone has their own experiences and thoughts of what they perceive to be social isolation and loneliness so it makes perfect sense that someone’s physical distance to others and lack of interactions is brought to awareness by someone’s thoughts on the concept of loneliness. Mental state being directly correlated to depressive symptoms makes way to much sense when considering loneliness. This article highlighted the importance of mental state and the focus on interventions needing to be on one’s constructs of subjective social isolation. It also brought to light that the literature on this subject still does not have a clear definition of “social isolation” or “loneliness” as this is the third article with a different definition. This should be a strong consideration when developing interventions to target this area.

Taylor, H. O., Taylor, R. J., Nguyen, A. W., & Chatters, L. (2018). Social isolation, depression, and psychological distress among older adults. Journal of aging and health, 30(2), 229-246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264316673511