Predictors of loneliness estimated by multivariate logistic regression.

<p>Mutually adjusted for all covariates in the model.</p><p>Loneliness was assessed by the question ‘How often do you feel lonely?’ and those who answered ‘Often’ were coded as ‘1’ and ‘Sometimes/Rarely/Never’ as ‘0’.</p><p>Reference categories were: sex (male), age (18–29), marital status (married/cohabiting), education (high), location (urban), household size (≥2), physical activity (no major difficulties), locus of control (high), wealth (high), social support (high), death of a close relative (no).</p>†<p>Education was classified as: low (less than complete secondary education), middle (completed secondary education), high (incomplete or complete higher education).</p>*<p>Physical activity difficulty was assessed by the question ‘How easily can you go up 2 or 3 flights of stairs or go uphill without getting out of breath?’.</p>§<p>Answers to the question ‘I feel that what happens in life is often determined by factors beyond my control’ were classified as: disagree/rather disagree (high), quite agree (middle), agree (low).</p>‡<p>Principal component analysis was used to generate the wealth index based on the possession of 10 household assets.</p>¶<p>Level of social support was based on a composite score (refer to text for details).</p>#<p>Death of a close relative was assessed by the question ‘During the last months, have you experienced the death of a close relative?’.</p>a<p>P<0.05, ^b P<0.01, ^c P<0.001.