Identifying loneliness in occupational healthcare

Talking about loneliness is not very common in occupational healthcare. However, socially responsible occupational healthcare also considers the employee’s social well-being, as it individually affects coping, well-being, and health.

Directly asking about loneliness can be effective. However, not everyone recognizes their own social needs and may have learned to ignore their feelings and focus only on performance. Some may fear being stigmatized.

Gently bringing up the topic and taking it seriously can increase readiness to face the problem and accept help. Loneliness can be addressed, for example, in the following way:

• “Everyone feels lonely sometimes. Loneliness becomes harmful to health and well-being if it continues for a long time without change. It can end up feeling like nothing can be done about it. We in occupational healthcare, together with your work community’s management, want to ensure that no one experiences harmful workplace loneliness. We can also help if you have challenges. How do you feel: do you feel lonely in your work community?”

Response options are: never, rarely, sometimes, quite often, continuously.

Loneliness experienced quite often or continuously should be taken seriously.

A three-question workplace loneliness survey can help clarify the experience of loneliness if the employee reports feeling lonely quite often or continuously.

For example, you can phrase it like this:

• “You mentioned that you often feel workplace loneliness. This is common among young people at the start of their careers. I have three statements for you that will help us more accurately identify your experience of loneliness:

1. I feel that I lack companionship at work.
2. I feel left out by others.
3. I feel isolated from other people.

Note: Do not allow yes or no responses; instead, ask the respondent to give responses to each question with the following scale: never, rarely, sometimes, quite often, continuously. This way, you get more detailed information about the experience.

After asking about loneliness, you can also ask:

• “Do you have other thoughts related to this?”
• “What would work in your situation?”
• “How could your supervisor and work community support you?”

The key to a solution lies with the employee themselves, even if they feel stuck in loneliness. The supervisor, occupational healthcare, and the work community can provide support when the employee is willing and ready to consider solutions.

Asking about loneliness may create the feeling that you should know how to solve the problem, but this is not the case. The most important thing for the person experiencing loneliness is being heard.

Compassionate listening and being heard create space for the employee to start thinking about how they can improve the situation together with occupational healthcare and their supervisor. Sometimes in the same meeting when loneliness is addressed, or sometimes after a few weeks of reflection.