Ramamonjiarivelo Z, Osborne R, Renick O, Sen K. Assessing the Effectiveness of Intergenerational Virtual Service-Learning Intervention on Loneliness and Ageism: A Pre-Post Study.
Healthcare (Basel) 2022;
10:893. [PMID:
35628031 PMCID:
PMC9141066 DOI:
10.3390/healthcare10050893]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2022] [Revised: 05/09/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Service-learning is an effective intervention to solve social issues. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of intergenerational virtual service-learning on loneliness and ageism.
METHOD
This study used a pre-post design. A group of undergraduate students were randomly assigned to a "service-learning" project (n = 18). They were paired with seniors (n = 22) to have at least a 30-min weekly virtual interaction for six weeks. The following scales were used: the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD) Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, a one-item researcher generated Likert-rating of loneliness, and two-item researcher generated Likert-rating of student competence.
RESULTS
Among college students, the service-learning group showed lower ASD and ageism scores at the post-test compared to the non-service-learning group, t (1, 40) = -2.027, p = 0.049; t (1, 40) = -2.102, p = 0.042, respectively. Among seniors, loneliness scores on the UCLA Scale and the one-item scale of loneliness dropped significantly from pre- to post-interactions with students, t (1, 19) = 2.301, p = 0.033, and t (1, 22) = 2.412, p = 0.009, respectively.
CONCLUSION
Virtual service-learning is an effective way to solve social issues such as loneliness and ageism.
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