[Prevalence and Characteristics of Social Isolation in the Elderly in a Dormitory Suburb According to Household Composition]

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to clarify the prevalence and characteristics of social isolation in elderly individuals living alone or with others in a dormitory suburb, and to examine the characteristics of non-responders to questions concerning social isolation.

Methods: Data were obtained from a survey of 978 elderly (aged 65 and over) individuals living alone and 1,529 elderly individuals living together in Wako-shi, Saitama. The frequencies of contacts with non-co-resident children, relatives, friends, and neighbors were used to operationally define social isolation. Based on these responses, those who had contact with any of the above groups less than 2 or 3 times a month were termed "isolated elderly", those who had contact with these more than once a week were termed "non-isolated elderly", and those who did not answer these questions were termed "nonresponders". In addition, a logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine differences among the characteristics of isolated elderly between these households. Also, a multiple comparison analysis was performed to clarify the characteristics of non-responders.

Results: The major findings were as follows: 1) rates of prevalence of the isolated elderly were 24.01% for elderly living alone, and 28.7% for elderly living with others, respectively; 2) the elderly who were male, childless or living distant from children, and of lower income tended to be more socially isolated whether they were living alone or not; 3) a difference in isolation was noted between living alone and together in that divorced and unmarried elderly tended to be isolated when living alone while older and frail elderly tended to be isolated even when living together; 4) the characteristics of "nonresponders" were similar to those of the isolated elderly for both those living alone and living together.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that social support for the socially isolated elderly should be adequately planned considering differences in the characteristics of isolation between those living alone and living together. It is also suggested that the non-responders in some questions relating to social isolation should be considered as likely to belong to the isolation groups when screening for the isolated elderly.