Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Loneliness Assuaged: Eye-Tracking an Audience Watching Barrage Videos
Published on: May 29, 2020
Correlates of loneliness among university students
1Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Social Work, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. uozdemir@hacettepe.edu.tr
Background:
The purpose of this study was to investigate level of loneliness, essential needs during university education, and relationships between loneliness, essential needs, and characteristics of university students. A sample comprising 721 students participated in the study. The mean age was 21.58 (SD = 1.73) with a range from 18 to 25. The majority of the students were female (70.6%) and were living in students' dormitory (67.5%) with low (87.8%) income, away from their parents.
Methods:
The UCLA-R loneliness scale and sociodemographic questionnaire which includes an open-ended question on essential needs during university education were administered. Pearson-Product-Moment correlations were used to explore the relationships between participants' loneliness, needs, and characteristics.
Results:
It was found that 60.2% of the participants experienced loneliness. Economical support (81.6%), social interaction (46.9%) and psychosocial support (35%) were the essential needs during university education reported by the participants. The study findings indicate that there were significant relationships between the needs of economical support, social interaction, and loneliness level of university students. Results also show that there were significant relationships among romantic relationship, parents' status and loneliness. Participants' loneliness levels were relatively higher who had not any romantic relationship and were not from married families.
Conclusion:
The findings of this study provided essential information, about Turkish university students, concerning: level of loneliness and relationships that exist among loneliness, needs and sociodemographic characteristics. The findings also suggest implications for psychosocial practice. Because of the mean of loneliness were found to be high (45.49 +/- 10.07), for this study, professionals need to pay attention to Turkish university students' psychosocial state, and need to empower them in establishing social relations.
Related Concept Videos
Correlations
Social Relationships and Well-Being
Importance of Need for Affiliation
Cross-Sectional Research
Relationship Formation
Surveys