Editorial Perspective: How can we develop effective and timely interventions for young people with chronic loneliness?

TL;DR

This editorial discusses how to create better and faster support for young people who experience long-term loneliness and its health effects.

Contribution

The paper proposes four strategies to improve the development and delivery of loneliness interventions for youth.

Findings

Chronic loneliness in youth has serious health consequences but lacks effective interventions.

Four barriers hinder timely development of evidence-based support for lonely youth.

Proposed solutions include assessing loneliness routinely and using flexible delivery methods.

Abstract

Loneliness is an adaptive experience evolved to create motivation to engage in social relationships. However, for some young people, loneliness can become chronic which can have serious negative health consequences. Despite this, there is a relative lack of evidence for interventions. In this editorial perspective, we highlight four main barriers to the timely development and dissemination of evidence‐based support for young people experiencing loneliness. We hypothesise that these challenges could be mitigated by (a) routinely assessing loneliness as part of routine outcome measures (ROMs), (b) utilising modular interventions incorporating intrapersonal, interpersonal and social strategies alongside system‐level support and policy changes, (c) evaluating interventions through SCEDs prior to RCTs and (d) delivering interventions flexibly (e.g. via the internet or within non‐clinical settings).