ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Epidemiol.
Sec. Aging and Life-course Epidemiology
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fepid.2025.1545342
Prevalence of loneliness and associated factors among older adults at Yilmana Densa District, West Gojjam Zone Amhara region, Ethiopia
Provisionally accepted
- University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Loneliness is a growing public health issue, particularly among older adults, owing to various internal and external factors related to ageing. However; evidence regarding this segment of the Ethiopian population is scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the prevalence of loneliness and its associated factors among older adults in Ethiopia.Methods: This community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 20 to May 20, 2023. A multistage systematic sampling technique, using an interviewer-administered questionnaire, was used. Data were entered into Epi Data version 4.6.0.0 and exported to the Stata version 14 software for analysis. A binary logistic regression analysis was conducted.Variables with a p-value < 0.20 in the Bivariable analysis were entered into multivariable regression and variables with a p-value <0.05, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) were considered statistically significant.Results: A total of 840 older adults took part with a 99.2% response rate. The overall prevalence of loneliness among older adults was 48.69%, with 95% CI = 45.31-52.07%. Living alone (OR=2.59, 95% CI = 1.11-6.05), the presence of chronic illness (OR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.12-2.54), sleep time greater than 9 hours (OR = 1.56, 95% CI = 1.08-2.22), impairment (OR = 5.09, 95% CI = 3.17-8.19), and poor social support (OR = 4.38, 95% CI = 2.53-7.59) were positively, but family size <5 (OR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.45-0.85) and good health status (OR = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.27-0.66) were negatively associated with loneliness among older adults.Nearly half of the participants felt lonely. Hence, every concerned body should pay special attention to this sidelined segment of the population by creating better social support networks, providing a conducive living environment, and providing aid to impaired older adults.
Keywords: Loneliness, older adults, factors, Yilmana Densa district, Ethiopia
Received: 14 Dec 2024; Accepted: 01 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Menewab Birhane, Demessie, Azagew, Abate and Mekonnen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chilot Mekonnen, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.