[Cross validity of the UCLA Loneliness Scale factorization].

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Loneliness is a negative subjective experience arising from deficient social relationships.
• It is a key construct in clinical psychology, linked to isolation and emotional distress.
• The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale is a widely used measure, but its factor structure is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the factor structure of the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in Spanish and Italian undergraduate students.
• To address the controversy surrounding the scale's unidimensional versus multidimensional structure.

Main Methods:

• Administered the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale to Spanish and Italian undergraduate university students.
• Analyzed the factor structure of the scale within these distinct populations.

Main Results:

• The analysis revealed a multifactorial structure for the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in both Spanish and Italian samples.
• A theoretically and analytically coherent bifactorial structure was identified.

Conclusions:

• The findings support a bifactorial structure for the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in the studied student populations.
• This research contributes to a clearer understanding of loneliness measurement across different cultural contexts.