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The Loneliness as a Phenomenon of the Old Age.
ONDRÁČKOVÁ, Miroslava
The main aim of this work is to map the level of loneliness of seniors in an early old age between 65 75 years. It is also important to find out whether seniors feel lonely and if so, what are the reasons of loneliness, how is the loneliness influenced by the physical and psychological health, family, friends, hobbies and the overall attitude to life. I divided the work to research and empirical chapters. The research chapter has two sections. The first section is aimed at different views of an old age. Positive psychology with personality strengths is also mentioned in this section. Recent studies about loneliness are summed up in the second section. The qualitative research of loneliness is described in the empirical chapter. Seven participants living alone in an apartment or a house took part in this research. The method of snowball sampling was used to get the participants who were interviewed using a semi-structured dialogue. During the research interview I used the interrogation method with prepared questions and then asked additional questions in case of doubt. A personality strengths questionnaire was a part of the interview. The whole interview was recorded and subsequently rewritten into this work. The personality strengths questionnaire was used to compare the results of the qualitative research with the strengths of questioned seniors. The results of my work showed that the loneliness as a phenomenon of an old age truly exists. The research also showed that more than 50% of questioned seniors feel lonely in an early old age. This may lead to a conclusion that the loneliness is an important problem. Since the feelings of loneliness are eliminated by an abundance of social contacts and hobbies, we should consider creating an environment which would help the seniors better manage the feelings of loneliness. Moreover, the personality strengths like sense for curiosity and interest in the world, optimism with future orientation, vitality and enthusiasm are the strengths of the interviewed seniors, who never feel lonely or on rare occasions. Therefore, it would be beneficial to strengthen personality strengths of seniors and educate them to be more active in order to maintain vitality and optimism until the late old age. I see the solution of the problem of loneliness mainly in prevention. It is important to prepare for the retirement as early as in the productive age in order to have enough social contacts and a broad spectrum of hobbies.
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