https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n39.14

Iván Fernando Amaya Cocunubo
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8117-5117
Universidad Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca, Colombia
ifamaya@unicolmayor.edu.co

Luz Helena Gómez Verano
 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4016-1354
Fundcrea Colombia
 helengo2002@gmail.com

Nahyr Remolina de Cleves
 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8842-0787
Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales —U.D.C.A—, Colombia
 remocleves@yahoo.es

Bertha Marlene Velásquez Burgos
 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2364-8224
Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales —U.D.C.A—, Colombia
 bemar5@yahoo.es

Lola Rosalía Saavedra Guzmán
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6101-5917
Fundcrea Colombia
 saavedralola@hotmail.com

Abstract:

This article aims to identify the level of social loneliness and its relation to affective balance and dispositional optimism within a group of elderly people institutionalized and non-institutionalized in the city of Bogotá, during the lockdown in 2020.To do this, a quantitative-descriptive, co-relational design was applied to 242 elderly people: institutionalized (97) and non-institutionalized (145), within a range of 60 to 99 years of age from different districts and socioeconomic strata in Bogotá. Participants were selected through a non-probability sampling. The analysis was conducted through a demographic study consisting of four items and scales East II, to assess their degree of social loneliness; Spane, to measure the level of affective balance; and Lot-R, to gauge their degree of dispositional optimism. The corresponding tests in each scale were processed through a multivariate, descriptive, multiple correspondence analysis. Specifically, the Chi-square test was applied, and in the end, Cronbach’s Alpha was estimated. Findings showed that institutionalized and non-institutionalized elderly people in the study show a medium to low level of social loneliness, and a high level of both affective balance and dispositional optimism. On the other hand, it showed that affective balance and dispositional optimism are directly related to the level of social loneliness.

Keywords: social loneliness, dispositional optimism, affective balance, elderly people.