AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Loneliness contributes to major health problems among the elderly people and its associates are still in dispute and nurses have a limited means to alleviate it. When people get older and experience different kinds of losses they are exposed to the threat of loneliness that might lead to death. Earlier research findings suggest that about a third of elderly Finnish people suffer from loneliness in Finnish health care institutions. Current Finnish president noted that there are more than a million people over the age of 65 in the country. Polls indicate that one third of them report feelings of loneliness. He defined the term loneliness as “means that one feels excluded and that life lacks meaning”. The purpose of this thesis research was to identify the knowledge why loneliness exists among the elderly people in Finnish health care institutions and the influencing factors of loneliness among the elderly people in Finnish health care institutions. The literature review illustrates the characteristics and influencing factors of loneliness among elderly people. The data was analyzed with qualitative content analysis. In the course of qualitative content analysis, the content of influencing factors of loneliness among elderly people in Finnish health care institutions was categorized into five subsections. They were (1) limited functional capacity, (2) Illnesses, (3) death of a spouse, (4) depression, (5) lack of friends and family by Savikko et al., 2005. Method used is a qualitative systematic literature review. The systematic literature search was conducted only from the reliable internet data base such as Ovid medline,Ebsco, Pub med, Sage journals and WHO in the field of health care, from recently published research studies in nursing and scientific journals. The data processing was done by content analysis. Findings from this study proved that loneliness has a common and distressing experience among elderly people in Finnish health care institutions. In future this study supports to understand and to recognize the factors that influence loneliness among elderly people in Finnish health care institutions. Conclusion loneliness can affect all walks of ages however loneliness among the elderly people in institutions are on the rise partly because elderly population is also on the rise.