The feeling of loneliness among the elderly population attending day care centers in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

Objective: To identify the factors associated with the categories of loneliness among the elderly population attending
day care centers in Bogotá, Colombia.
Materials and methods: An analytical, cross-sectional and quantitative study was carried out to measure the loneliness
among older people attending a day care center in the city of Bogotá between November 2020 and June 2021 using
the ESTE scale. To meet the objective, a univariate descriptive statistical analysis was performed, such that, for the
quantitative variables, the mean with standard deviation or median with interquartile ranges were used, in accordance with the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality, and for the categorical variables, absolute frequencies and proportions were
used. The bivariate analysis was conducted using Student’s t-test and chi-square test (p < 0.05), which contributed to
build a logistic regression model with statistically significant variables. Results: A total of 215 elderly people with a mean age of 70.5 years were included in the study: 72 % were females, 56.5 % had primary education, 38.6 % were single and 67.4 % had a history of chronic non-communicable disease. According to the ESTE scale, the study subjects showed a low level of family loneliness (67 %), a high and medium
level of marital loneliness (79 %), a high and medium level of social loneliness (51 %) and a high and medium level of adaptation crisis (43 %). It was found that marital loneliness was associated with females ( p = 0.001), social loneliness with lower class ( p = 0.027) and adaptation crisis with lower class (p = 0.024). Conclusions: The factors associated with the feeling of loneliness among the elderly population attending day care centers are, in the marital loneliness category, being a woman and, in the social loneliness and adaptation crisis categories,
belonging to the lower class.