Effects of a Volunteer-based Lunch Program on Feelings of Loneliness in Elders
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03552328. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Official title
Effects of a Pilot Volunteer-based Lunch Program on Feelings of Loneliness in Elders: a Randomized Control Trial
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Background: There is a need for stronger community involvement with the elderly, specifically those with feelings of loneliness. Large proportions of elders in previous studies reported feelings of loneliness, and loneliness at advanced ages is a growing trend seen within the last thirty years despite advances in technology and social media. We propose a randomized control trial to determine the effectiveness of a volunteer-based lunch program on decreasing feelings of loneliness in elderly participants. Methods: Lonely elders in the community will be identified and matched with a trained medical student. Each student will bring provided lunches once a week to their elder participant's residence, and they will share lunch together for an hour once a week for six weeks. Enrollees are eligible for the study if they are over 60 years of age, speak English, have feelings of loneliness on the three-item scale, and display no cognitive impairment. The participants will be assessed pre and post intervention using the R-UCLA scale for loneliness, PHQ-9 for depressive symptoms, and GAD-7 for feelings of anxiety. Participant satisfaction will be assessed using Likert items as well as open-ended questions. Intervention group responses will be compared to responses of participants that did not receive the lunch meeting intervention. Discussion: Success of such a companion lunch program would provide an effective route to combat loneliness in the elderly.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03552328
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 16 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 60 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Oct 14, 2018
- Primary completion
- Feb 16, 2019
- Completion
- May 14, 2019
- Last update posted
- Jul 21, 2019
2018 – 2019
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morsani College of Medicine | Tampa | Florida | 33620 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03552328, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jul 21, 2019 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03552328 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.