Loneliness and social isolation among older adults in a community exercise program: a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Loneliness and social isolation (L&SI) are associated with physical and cognitive decline in older adults. Walk ‘n’ Talk for your Life (WTL) is a community-based program of socialization, health education, falls prevention exercise and walking for community-dwelling older adults. This qualitative study was done to gain further insight into the experience and impacts of the WTL on seniors’ L&SI.

Methods: One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen participants who had completed the WTL . Interview questions focused on eliciting a better understanding of how the WTL impacted participants' feelings of L&SI. Content analysis was used to classify the qualitative data .

Results: This qualitative evaluation helped to obtain a richer understanding of WTL participants’ reasons for loneliness and the benefits of the program on participants’ experience of L&SI. Participants felt WTL helped motivate them to socialize and reduced their feelings of loneliness by providing a sense of ‘belonging’ which appeared to be mediated by the group exercise/walking component of the program.

Discussion/Conclusions: This study provides insight into participants’ experiences of L&SI. Further research in a broader population of older adults is mandated to determine the efficacy of community exercise programs in reducing L&SI.

KEYWORDS:

• Loneliness
• social isolation
• community exercise program
• qualitative methods

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the inspiring help from Dr. Sara de Leeuw in help with design of the study interview script. The authors would also like to acknowledge the help of Tim Fong in performing an in-depth interview.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This research project received no specific grant from any public, commercial or non-profit funding agency.