A controlled evaluation of social prescribing on loneliness for adults in Queensland: 8-week outcomes

Dingle, GA, Sharman, LS, Hayes, S, Haslam, C, Cruwys, T, Jetten, J, Haslam, SA, McNamara, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3123-3678, Chua, D, Baker, JR and Johnson, T, 2024. A controlled evaluation of social prescribing on loneliness for adults in Queensland: 8-week outcomes. Frontiers in Psychology. ISSN 1664-1078 (Forthcoming)

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Abstract

There have been few controlled evaluations of Social Prescribing (SP), in which link workers support lonely individuals to engage with community-based social activities. This study reports early outcomes of a trial comparing General Practitioner treatment-as-usual (TAU) with TAU combined with Social Prescribing (SP) in adults experiencing loneliness in Queensland. Participants were 114 individuals who were non-randomly assigned to one of two conditions (SP, n = 63; TAU, n = 51) and assessed at baseline and 8 weeks, on primary outcomes (loneliness, well-being, health service use in past 2 months) and secondary outcomes (social anxiety, psychological distress, social trust). Retention was high (79.4%) in the SP condition. Time x condition interaction effects were found for loneliness and social trust, with improvement observed only in SP participants over the 8-week period. SP participants reported significant improvement on all other outcomes with small-to-moderate effect sizes (ULS-8 loneliness, wellbeing, psychological distress, social anxiety). However, interaction effects did not reach significance. Social prescribing effects were small to moderate at the 8-week follow up. Group- based activities are available in communities across Australia, however, further research using well-matched control samples and longer-term follow ups are required to provide robust evidence to support a wider roll out.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Frontiers in Psychology
Creators:	Dingle, G.A., Sharman, L.S., Hayes, S., Haslam, C., Cruwys, T., Jetten, J., Haslam, S.A., McNamara, N., Chua, D., Baker, J.R. and Johnson, T.
Publisher:	Frontiers Media
Date:	8 March 2024
ISSN:	1664-1078
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1359855 DOI 1873930 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	15 Mar 2024 16:53
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 16:53
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51097

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