Understanding and helping the lonely: An evaluation of the LUV program.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to create, implement, and evaluate a loneliness intervention program for college students. Loneliness is particularly prevalent among young adults, ages 18-25, and is associated with poor mental health. The program, known as the LUV (Lonely? Unburdening your Vulnerability) program, was based upon recommendations by loneliness researchers and previous intervention research. The program sought to address three causes of loneliness: insecure attachment styles (including dysfunctional cognitive patterns), poor social skills, and ineffective coping through a structured group environment. The program was a seven week psycho-educational program. The program had five main activities: program information modules, assignments, weekly discussions, journaling, and an online reference. The program effectiveness component of the evaluation assessed whether the experimental group made significantly greater improvements than the control groups and if these improvements were sustained 4-5 months after the program ended. There were 16 participants in the experimental group and 358 participants in the control group. Results found that the experimental group had significant decreases in loneliness, improvements in their attachment styles and social skills, reductions in negative coping, decreases in depression and alcohol abuse, and increases in self-esteem when compared to the control groups. These were changes were sustained 4-5 months after the program ended except for ruminative coping. The program monitoring component of the evaluation assessed whether the program functioned as intended. Results showed high scores for program performance including relevance of the topics covered, usefulness of the social skills taught, satisfaction with the program, feelings of closeness with group members, and the effectiveness of the facilitator. On average, participants only missed one out of the seven weekly meetings. In addition, participants reported feeling less lonely, less sad, increased confidence in meeting new people, and satisfaction with themselves as they progressed through the program. These results suggested that a loneliness intervention program geared towards addressing these three problem areas of attachment styles, social skills, and coping can help young adults not only significantly reduce their loneliness and improve in these problem areas, but also show improvements in other areas such as depression, alcohol abuse, and self esteem