Prediction of Loneliness in Older Adults Using Natural Language Processing: Exploring Sex Differences in Speech.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The growing pandemic of loneliness has great relevance to aging populations, though assessments are limited by self-report approaches. This paper explores the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to evaluate interviews on loneliness, notably, employing natural language processing (NLP) to quantify sentiment and features that indicate loneliness in transcribed speech text of older adults.

Design

Participants completed semi-structured qualitative interviews regarding the experience of loneliness and a quantitative self-report scale (University of California Los Angeles or UCLA Loneliness scale) to assess loneliness. Lonely and non-lonely participants (based on qualitative and quantitative assessments) were compared.

Setting

Independent living sector

SUBMITTER: Badal VD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7486862 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature