Loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic – Andrew Azzopardi

During these last years, the Faculty for Social Wellbeing has continued to validate its ethos by responding in a timely fashion to issues that are happening around us and providing empirical data that will contribute towards the democratizing of knowledge.

One aspect the Faculty has been working incessantly on is the phenomenon of ‘loneliness’. After the national survey we conducted last year (2019) which surfaced a number of staggering truths, we are now in a position to provide data on how COVID-19 impacted our communities, through a study conducted by Prof. Marilyn Clark, Jamie Bonnici our Research Support Officer and myself.

The study highlights that in the period when we were gathering the data, that is between the 29th April and 11th May 2020, more than 9 out of 10 people experienced some form of loneliness during the pandemic. This is a staggering statistic considering we are cognizant of the impact this social phenomenon has on society.

The survey received over 900 responses. The objective of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of ‘loneliness’ amongst members of the Maltese adult population during the current COVID-19 pandemic after a number of weeks struggling with a non-mandatory lockdown, isolation from relatives and friends and a general feeling of separation. We also compared the data to a similar study which was carried out by the Faculty exactly one year ago, using a different method in the collecting of data, yet still analogous. In both surveys we applied the De Jong Gierveld standardized Loneliness Scale (DJGLS), and this helped because we could compare differences in results and provide an indication of the impact of the current pandemic on people’s rates of loneliness.

Through the 11 questions we asked, we compared the prevalence of the 2019 loneliness study with the one collected in these last weeks. In addition, we added a question which gauged how frequently people feel lonely. This additional question allows for an improved understanding of loneliness because the survey attested to both the intensity or severity of loneliness, as well as the frequency of loneliness.

There are obviously methodological differences between the original 2019 research study and the present one however they are similar enough to compare outcomes.

But what were the main findings?

- Those aged between 18-24 years reported the most frequent feelings of loneliness, with 62% feeling lonely ‘often/always’ or ‘some of the time’.

- 44% of those persons aged 25-34 reported that they feel lonely often, always, or some of the time.

- It is clear that rates of both moderate and severe loneliness have increased considerably within the space of a year. In 2019, 43.5% of the Maltese population aged 11 years and above were found to experience some degree of loneliness (either moderate, severe, or very severe). The latest data shows that, one year later and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, this figure has risen to 94% (59% moderately lonely and 35% severely or very severely lonely) for those aged 18 years and above.

- There is a spike of almost 40% in severe or very severe loneliness for those under 19 years of age and a spike of 43% for those in the 20-24 age group.

- More than a third of foreigners – 36% – felt lonely sometimes, compared to 27% of the Maltese respondents in the current survey.

The data shows that there was an overall spike in the feeling of loneliness, findings that provide empirical evidence of the substantial increase in loneliness amongst Maltese adults during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let us not believe that coming out of the pandemic automatically means that the situation is back to normal.

There will be a lot of fallout as a result of what we have gone through.

The post-COVID-19 impact of ‘loneliness’ on the population is and will be immense.

But some solutions are there for the taking.

I recommend that we; increase access to personal therapy; get family doctors more involved as they are best placed to identify health problems resulting from loneliness; we need a ‘Champion’ to spearhead the cause, a person respected at a national level; we need to set up a national action-committee made up of the various stakeholders to take this agenda forward; we need to have on-going studies in this area so that we can provide policy makers with empirical data; we need to place ‘loneliness’ on the public mental health agenda; we need to have improved town planning; and, we need to capitalize on NGO resources, motivations and ideas.

‘Loneliness’ is a scourge for our communities, COVID-19 or not – and needs to be dealt with skillfully and expediently. We now have statistics that are clearly indicating the gravity of the situation, we just cannot keep ignoring the evidence.