Tool Construction to Measure the Levels of Perceived Loneliness and Its Relationship with Self-Esteem among Adults

World Health Organization (WHO) has declared loneliness as a global health threat. Understanding the same, the present study aims to construct and validate a tool to measure the levels of perceived loneliness and assess its relationship with self-esteem. The tool construction was carried out through review of literature and inputs from focus group discussions. The theoretical framework is based on Weiss’s Six Provisions for Loneliness (1973). For the pilot study the sample consisted of 103 participants for the pilot study where they were administered a 48-item Perceived Loneliness Scale (Sivakami & Subasree, 2024) and UCLA Loneliness Scale(Russell, 1996) for assessing reliability-validity. The tool possesses high internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha value of 0.902 and Guttman split half reliability coefficient of 0.852. The convergent validity was established with the measures of UCLA Loneliness scale.  Using eigenvalue, the items were refined to devise an 18-item Perceived Loneliness Scale (Sivakami & Subasree,2024), and 289 participants were administered the scale along with the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). The study used the convenience sampling technique. The 25th edition of the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS-25) was used for data analysis. The results indicated that there exists a significant correlation between loneliness and self-esteem and perceived loneliness was found to be a significant predictor of self-esteem. The study is a novel effort to develop a tool to measure loneliness in the Indian context with a multidimensional understanding of the same. The study has significant implications for further research in the context of loneliness and in the development of psychological interventions for the same.