Table 2.

Depressive symptom severity score at each follow-up in the sample overall and by loneliness score

	Overall	Loneliness
		High*	Low†	p value‡
Wave three (n=4060)	1·16 (1·64)	2·25 (2·15)	0·94 (1·41)	<0·0001
Wave four (n=3651)	1·13 (1·64)	2·09 (2·09)	0·93 (1·46)	<0·0001
Wave five (n=3387)	1·26 (1·70)	2·21 (2·08)	1·07 (1·54)	<0·0001
Wave six (n=3142)	1·14 (1·63)	2·06 (2·07)	0·96 (1·46)	<0·0001
Wave seven (n=2751)	1·17 (1·59)	2·13 (2·04)	0·98 (1·41)	<0·0001
Wave eight (n=2449)	1·14 (1·53)	2·06 (1·96)	0·97 (1·37)	<0·0001

Data are mean (SD). The number of participants with complete data on all variables at each wave varies because there were a different number of people with depression data at each wave (due to attrition). R-UCLA=the short 1980 version of the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale.

^*Participants who scored 6–9 on R-UCLA.

^†Participants who scored less than 6 on R-UCLA.

^‡Obtained from independent t tests.