Associations between recorded loneliness and adverse mental health outcomes among patients receiving mental healthcare in South London: a retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: Loneliness disproportionately affects people with mental disorders, but associations with mental health outcomes in groups affected remain less well understood.

Method: A cohort of patients receiving mental healthcare on 30th June 2012 was assembled from a large mental health records database covering a south London catchment area. Recorded loneliness within the preceding 2 years was extracted using natural language processing and outcomes were measured between 30th June 2012 until 30th December 2019, except for survival which applied a censoring point of 6th December 2020 according to data available at the time of extraction.

Associations between loneliness and acute hospitalisation outcomes among patients receiving mental healthcare in South London: a retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: It is well known that loneliness can worsen physical and mental health outcomes, but there is a dearth of research on the impact of loneliness in populations receiving mental healthcare. This study aimed to investigate cross-sectional correlates of loneliness among such patients and longitudinal risk for acute general hospitalisations.

Method: A retrospective observational study was conducted on the data from patients aged 18 + receiving assessment/care at a large mental healthcare provider in South London.