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      Are we measuring loneliness in the same way in men and women in the general population and in the older population? Two studies of measurement equivalence

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          Abstract

          Background

          High levels of loneliness are associated with negative health outcomes and there are several different types of interventions targeted at reducing feelings of loneliness. It is therefore important to accurately measure loneliness. A key unresolved debate in the conceptualisation and measurement of loneliness is whether it has a unidimensional or multidimensional structure. The aim of this study was to examine the dimensional structure of the widely used UCLA Loneliness Scale and establish whether this factorial structure is equivalent in men and women.

          Methods and sample

          Two online UK-based samples were recruited using Prolific. The participants in Study 1 were 492 adults, selected to be nationally representative by age and gender, whilst the participants in Study 2 were 290 older adults aged over 64. In both studies, participants completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) as part of a larger project.

          Results

          In both studies, the best fitting model was one with three factors corresponding to ‘Isolation,’ ‘Relational Connectedness,’ and ‘Collective Connectedness.’ A unidimensional single factor model was a substantially worse fit in both studies. In both studies, there were no meaningful differences between men and women in any of the three factors, suggesting measurement invariance across genders.

          Conclusion

          These results are consistent with previous research in supporting a multidimensional, three factor structure to the UCLA scale, rather than a unidimensional structure. Further, the measurement invariance across genders suggests that the UCLA scale can be used to compare levels of loneliness across men and women. Overall the results suggest that loneliness has different facets and thus future research should consider treating the UCLA loneliness scale as a multidimensional scale, or using other scales which are designed to measure the different aspects of loneliness.

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          lavaan: AnRPackage for Structural Equation Modeling

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            Welcome to the Tidyverse

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              Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: SupervisionRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: Software
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: Software
                Role: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: SoftwareRole: Supervision
                Role: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS One
                plos
                PLOS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                2022
                29 December 2022
                : 17
                : 12
                : e0266167
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Dept. of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
                [2 ] Dept. of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
                Shenzhen University, CHINA
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: We have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: TVP/SGBR have been supported by Facebook Research via an Instagram Research Award. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4210-935X
                Article
                PONE-D-21-19934
                10.1371/journal.pone.0266167
                9799294
                36580475
                73410620-a8ce-4eb0-8afd-62e3ce476187
                © 2022 Pollet et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 29 June 2021
                : 16 March 2022
                Page count
                Figures: 2, Tables: 4, Pages: 16
                Funding
                Funded by: Facebook Research
                Award ID: Instagram Research Award
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Facebook Research
                Award ID: Instagram Research Award
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Dept. of Psychology (Northumbria University)
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Dept. of Psychology (Northumbria University)
                Award Recipient :
                Sample 1 reported in the paper was supported by Facebook Research through an Instagram Research Award to TVP and SGBR ( https://research.fb.com/blog/2018/12/announcing-the-winners-of-the-instagram-research-awards-for-social-technologies/). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Sample 2 reported in the paper was supported by the Dept. of Psychology at Northumbria University to AT and TVP. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.
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