[Clinical and social aspects of loneliness among elderly psychiatric patients]

The paper presents investigation of 70 lonely patients and 170 patients living in family (older than 60 years old). Clinical characteristics (nosologic entity, syndrome) and demographic (sex, age), social-economic (housing living conditions, income) were considered. Lonely patients were younger, they had worse social, living conditions; women, schizophrenics and patients with productive syndromes, severe somatic pathology were often among them. The group of lonely patients was more homogeneous in nosologic entities, syndrome manifestations, in both demographic and social structure. Patients living in family were more heterogenous (wider spectrum of psychic disorders and larger variability of social and demographic parameters).