Personal online social networks as moderators of the association between loneliness and quality of life in Polish adults aged 50+

TL;DR

This study shows that joining online communities can reduce the negative impact of loneliness on quality of life for older Polish women.

Contribution

It identifies online social networks as a moderator of the loneliness-QoL relationship in older adults.

Findings

For women in online communities, loneliness did not significantly affect quality of life.

The results were consistent across models adjusted for age, health, and offline social networks.

Encouraging older women to join online communities may improve their quality of life.

Abstract

In response to a critical public health issue related to the need of better understanding the underlying consequences of social isolation and loneliness this study investigates the moderating role of personal online social networks in the association between loneliness and QoL in Polish men and women aged 50 years or older. The cross-sectional study COURAGE-CAD was done in 2024. The analysis included 1,802 face-to-face interviews conducted with randomly selected people (50+) from among general Polish population. Multiple linear regression models with interaction terms were used. Among women who were members of online community the association between loneliness and QoL was not statistically significant contrary to women who did not use the internet or use it but without being a member of online community. All models controlled for age and further for sociodemographic variables, health, functional status gave similar results. Additional adjustment for the level of social networks (offline) also did not change the results. The study showed that encouraging middle-aged and older adult women to join online communities might mitigate the negative effect of loneliness on their QoL.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-24545-z.

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