Furthermore, difficulties with establishing personal contacts, caused, for instance, by social anxiety, add to loneliness.
Friendship attachments provide a sense of security and a sense of belonging which potentially counters isolation and loneliness.
The third research question is: does the association between support giving and loneliness vary with the balance of the exchanges?
Being old to the informants, then, is about loneliness, loss of things that were meaningful, being unimportant and irrelevant, or having no role.
Being alone in later life : loneliness, isolation and living alone in later life.
Attributes associated with the former include : social contact, neighbourliness, the absence of loneliness and isolation.
Clearly, isolation, loneliness, being alone and living alone are related but not coincident categories.
Isolation and loneliness may also restrict the access of older people to podiatry services.
