ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1625322
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling the Mental Health Impact of Physical Decline in Older Adults: A Holistic ApproachView all 3 articles
Developmental trajectories of loneliness and social support in older adults: based on the parallel process latent growth curve model
Provisionally accepted
- 1Wuhan College, Wuhan, China
- 2Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
- 3Department of Sociology, University of Manchester, Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
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Background: With the acceleration of global aging, loneliness among older adults has become a prominent issue and a critical public health concern. Existing research has primarily focused on the cross-sectional relationship between social support and loneliness, but longitudinal dynamics and bidirectional mechanisms remain underexplored. This study aims to explore the developmental trajectories and interaction between loneliness and social support among Chinese older residents in the community.The study was conducted with three waves of data collection (6-month intervals) over one years, involving 1,225 Chinese older residents in the community. The Navigating the Social Support Scale and the UCLA Loneliness Scale were used to measure social support and loneliness, respectively. Cross-lagged panel modeling (CLPM) was employed to examine bidirectional predictive relationships, while parallel process latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) was applied to assess associations between initial levels and developmental rates of the two constructs.Results:1) The loneliness of the older adults gradually increased over time, while the level of social support slowly decreased. 2) Loneliness could negatively predict social support from T1 to T2, and T2 to T3, but only social support at T1 negatively predicted loneliness at T2. 3) The initial level of loneliness could negatively predict the development speed of social support, and social support could also negatively predict the development speed of loneliness.We found that that high loneliness is a risk factor in the development of social support levels, and high social support is also a protective factor in the development of loneliness, which provides empirical evidence for the study of emotional health in the older adults.
Keywords: social support, Loneliness, Cross-lagged model, Parallel process latent growth curve model, older adults
Received: 08 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Chen and Li. 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: Xin Li, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester, Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
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