Loneliness and Quality of Life in Older Adults: The Mediating Role of Depression

This study's objective was to investigate the mediating role of depression in the relationship between loneliness and older adults' quality of life. Promoting the quality of life in individuals is one of the main issues that is consistently emphasized by the World Health Organization. The importance of this issue doubles, especially in older ages. Many elders face new challenges in this period and do not have access to their supportive resources as correctly as the past. Service providers for older people usually concentrate on providing physical facilities for them; however, psychological factors, with the same proportion, might affect the promotion or subsidence of older adults' quality of life. Two hundred and sixty-three participants (M=68.99 years, SD=7; 43% females) completed self-reported measures of loneliness, depressive symptoms, and quality of life. We used Structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data. Older adults people who had a higher sense of loneliness and depression reported lower quality of life. The results also showed that depression had a partial mediator role in the relationship between loneliness and life quality. With the expansion of previous studies that showed a significant relationship between loneliness, depression, and quality of life, this study revealed that loneliness in the older adults directly and indirectly (through the incidence of depressive symptoms) lowered the quality of life.