[Unwanted loneliness in Spain: a problem for the management of Public Health and family care].

Abstract

In Spain, the advances in medicine and pharmacology, technology, etc., together with the low birth rates (a product of various social phenomena that occurred during the 20th century), cause an unprecedented population aging, a situation that extends to the rest of the countries. Europeans. This circumstance leads to an increase in the number of elderly people in a situation of dependency, entailing challenges such as the increase in chronic diseases and palliative stages, the management of informal care, the economic cost of formal care and unwanted loneliness (SND). , among other. Regarding this last challenge, and its consequences, it can be said that: it is a silent problem of a new order that affects more and more people in Spain, Europe and the world; It represents a source of suffering for those who suffer from it and a limitation of the right to participate in society; causes negative consequences for health and emotional well-being; It is associated with certain social and economic costs. Today it is estimated that in our country 13.4% of people suffer from SND, that those who suffer from it have been in this situation for approximately six years and that 22.9% experience this feeling of loneliness throughout the day. Likewise, in Europe as a whole, around thirty million people frequently feel lonely. Considering the sex variable, it is women who suffer from this problem with the highest prevalence (14.8% in the case of women and 12.1% in the case of men). Among the factors associated with this trend is life expectancy at birth. It should be said in this regard that, in recent decades, our country has experienced an increase in life expectancy by almost five years, being greater in the case of women. By 2022 this increase amounts to 83.08 years (women=85.7/men=80.3), a fact that places Spain in tenth place in the classification of the 194 countries that publish their life expectancy.