大多数人在一生中的某个时刻经历了孤独，但由于周围的污名，许多人都不会承认这种经历。通常，即使存在一些差异，“孤独”和“社会隔离”术语也会互换使用。例如，当一个人拥有有限的陪伴，几乎没有或没有情感和社会支持时，孤独被视为一种主观经历。另一方面，当与家人，朋友或更广泛的社区缺乏社会接触和互动时，社会隔离被认为会发生。因此，一个人有可能建立大量的社交联系，仍然感到孤独，或者孤立，但不会感到孤独。
Loneliness may occur at any point in a life cycle, e.g. during childhood, adolescence, middle-age or older age; and risk factors that can cause loneliness and social isolation include: age, gender, home relocation, geographic isolation, living alone, divorce, widowhood, poor health, limited mobility, ethnicity, and retirement. However, older people appear to be more vulnerable to experiencing loneliness and social isolation. According to Age UK (2018), there are 1.4 million chronically lonely older people in England and many more across the UK. Loneliness is widely publicized as a major health concern due to its negative impact on health.
研究已经确定了孤独/社会隔离与各种精神和身体健康状况的较高风险之间的联系，包括心脏病，高血压，免疫系统减弱，焦虑，抑郁，认知能力下降甚至死亡。旨在减轻孤独和社会隔离的干预措施现在被广泛提倡作为解决这一日益严重问题的解决方案，尽管这些干预措施的证据不清楚的程度尚不清楚。因此，我们进行了范围审查，以绘制该领域的大量研究证据，并描述针对老年人群的孤独/社会隔离干预措施的范围。
Our review(of reviews) identified that review authors do not always provide a rationale or theoretical underpinning for the interventions studied, and that generally the intervention and its match with loneliness is poorly conceptualized and defined. Interventions reported to be effective appeared to be characterized by, among other aspects, a theoretical underpinning. Moreover, our review points to the importance of context and highlights that a lack of theoretical underpinning tends to pose difficulties in terms of ascertaining which context(s) a particular category of intervention would be most appropriate or effective, and also by which mechanisms these interventions work to reduce loneliness and social isolation.
Furthermore, a broad range of terms were used to describe the characteristics of interventions that were designed to alleviate loneliness and social isolation. Although the same or similar terms were used, often, their meanings were different. Improving the consistency of terminology that is used to describe these interventions is likely to increase accuracy and improve the reporting of an intervention as well as aid in the process of replicating interventions across different contexts.
我们的研究还指出，认识到可能不会以相同或相同程度的方式经历孤独和社会隔离的老年人中个人孤独体验的独特性的重要性。鉴于孤独的主观经验以及孤独和社会孤立的不同决定因素，以各自的孤独和社会隔离原因针对干预措施也很重要。因此，在目标，设计和实施方面，需要定制干预措施以满足每个人的要求，同时考虑到跨干预措施的多样性和异质性。
Distinguishing clearly between interventions targeted at reducing loneliness and social isolation is important as those interventions targeted at alleviating loneliness might not work for individuals who feel socially isolated and vice versa. Finally, service planners and providers should match effective interventions to their service context and goals, and also match individuals to interventions based on their assessed needs.
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