Social Isolation And Loneliness In The COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a problem that the world has been facing for just about two and a half years. During this time, governments around the world implemented a variety of mandates – most prevalently lockdowns, quarantines, and other social isolation guidelines – in an attempt to curtail the spread of COVID-19. It makes intuitive sense to expect social isolation to have impacted loneliness levels in the general adult population during the first year of the pandemic, when social isolation related guidelines were widespread. Thus, the present study sought to conduct a search and review of the psychological literature related to the impact of social isolation and other related variables on loneliness in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological databases and studies’ reference sections were searched until a pool of 11 studies was formed. Aside from loneliness, variables that were examined as predictors of loneliness in at least five of the 11 studies were chosen for discussion in the present literature review. Ultimately, it was found that loneliness was high and widespread during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that a number of sociodemographic variables were risk factors for loneliness during this time. However, there were some contradictory findings in the studies regarding whether or not loneliness increased in the general population during this time. Thus, further longitudinal research investigating this phenomenon is warranted.