title: Loneliness and emergency and planned hospitalizations in a community sample of older adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine whether loneliness is independently associated with emergency hospitalization and planned hospital inpatient admissions in a population sample of older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nationally representative cross-sectional interviews in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
  
  
  METHODS
  Private homes in the community.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomly selected older people in the community (aged ≥65, N=2,033).
  
  
  METHODS
  Emergency hospitalization and planned hospital admissions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eleven percent of the sample had an emergency hospitalization, and 15% had a planned hospital admission. Forty-two percent reported being bothered by loneliness. A higher frequency of loneliness was associated with emergency hospitalization only (odds ratio=1.29, 95% confidence interval=1.08-1.55), and this association was independent of a range of potential confounders in multivariate analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this community-based sample of older adults, greater loneliness was independently associated with emergency hospitalization but not planned inpatient admissions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland. g.j.molloy@stir.ac.uk
authors.forename: Gerard J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Molloy
authors.forename: Hannah M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: McGee
authors.forename: Desmond
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: O'Neill
authors.forename: Ronan M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Conroy
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology; D004630:Emergencies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007494:Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D008132:Loneliness; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012944:Social Support