This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Mohammadreza Hojat, PhD
Thomas Jefferson University Philadelphia, Pa

JAMA. 1992;268(2):195-196.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The study reported by Dr Case and colleagues¹ that living alone is an independent risk factor in a recurrent major cardiac event is interesting. The significance of loneliness as a risk factor could have been even greater had information concerning the individual's perception of the extent of experiencing loneliness been taken into consideration. According to the cognitive-attributional model of loneliness,² the negative consequences of loneliness are related to the perception of attributes such as causality, stability, and controllability rather than physical isolation. Furthermore, it has been shown that a person's dissatisfaction with, rather than the size of, his or her social network contributes to loneliness.³

The empirical data reported by Case and colleagues support the proposition made by Lynch⁴ that loneliness "can break the human heart." In his book, The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness, Lynch proposed that loneliness contributed significantly . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?