We present evidence from a 5-year longitudinal study for the prospective associations
between loneliness and depressive symptoms in a population-based, ethnically diverse
sample of 229 men and women who were 50-68 years old at study onset. Cross-lagged
panel models were used in which the criterion variables were loneliness and depressive
symptoms, considered simultaneously. We used variations on this model to evaluate
the possible effects of gender, ethnicity, education, physical functioning, medications,
social network size, neuroticism, stressful life events, perceived stress, and social
support on the observed associations between loneliness and depressive symptoms. Cross-lagged
analyses indicated that loneliness predicted subsequent changes in depressive symptomatology,
but not vice versa, and that this temporal association was not attributable to demographic
variables, objective social isolation, dispositional negativity, stress, or social
support. The importance of distinguishing between loneliness and depressive symptoms
and the implications for loneliness and depressive symptomatology in older adults
are discussed.
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