Adaptation of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults to Turkish Culture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper meets the basic criteria for publication after the adjustment several points.

 The theoretical part of the work addresses the fundamental concepts of the theme of loneliness; however, the key division of the questionnaire used (i.e., social, romantic, and family loneliness) is only mentioned at the end of the literature review, with reference to the cultural determinants of the Turkish environment. Therefore, readers lack a comprehensive description of these dimensions of loneliness and any additional theoretical or empirical contexts. A brief description of the scale using just one item illustration, as provided in the tool description, is not sufficient.

The results present basic psychometric analyses, utilizing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and reliability tests. This section is adequately processed and sufficient, although there could have been an opportunity to also process and report Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results. Subsequent statistical analysis examines the sociodemographic correlates of loneliness results within the sample. While the analysis is adequate, some findings may be misleading due to the non-representative sample- particularly regarding the age of respondents (likely predominantly obtained from students and other available individuals), which affects the interpretation of results, especially the correlation of loneliness with age. Moreover, there is uneven representation in the comparative analysis of individual groups (where the majority of respondents are single and some described groups are particularly small [7 cohabiting]). However, these analyses serve as a supplement to an otherwise successful verification of the questionnaire's adaptation. I strongly recommend that these conclusions be labeled as partial findings and that the aforementioned methodological limitations of the research sample selection be reflected upon as the work's limitations (in the discussion).

I would also like to add some minor technical notes: I would recommend some further clarification; for example,

line 298 begins: "... third factors refer to 'social loneliness', …“ -  which may be somewhat confusing for readers. Therefore, I would recommend clarifying the entire sentence: "Similarly, the items clustered on the first, second, and third factors refer to 'social loneliness,' 'romantic loneliness,' and 'family loneliness,' respectively," for clarity (for example, by describing, "... the 1st factor refers to 'social loneliness,' the 2nd to 'romantic loneliness,' and the 3rd to 'family loneliness'").

Furthermore, I would recommend to arrange the items in the EFA table based on the decreasing factor loadings of each item within the cluster.

Additionally, for the reader's convenience, I would include the item number before the wording of each item in the questionnaire.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive feed-back which helped us to improve the paper.

The theoretical part of the work addresses the fundamental concepts of the theme of loneliness; however, the key division of the questionnaire used (i.e., social, romantic, and family loneliness) is only mentioned at the end of the literature review, with reference to the cultural determinants of the Turkish environment. Therefore, readers lack a comprehensive description of these dimensions of loneliness and any additional theoretical or empirical contexts. A brief description of the scale using just one item illustration, as provided in the tool description, is not sufficient.

Thank you for pointing this out. It is true that we did not contextualize loneliness enough and the treatment was too superficial. We have revised the introduction thoroughly based on your suggestion and added a more comprehensive description of the dimensions of loneliness and the theoretical or empirical context, while trying not to extend the length of the paper too much.

The results present basic psychometric analyses, utilizing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and reliability tests. This section is adequately processed and sufficient, although there could have been an opportunity to also process and report Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results.

Yes, we actually discussed the choice between EFA and CFA before the analyses. Both approaches have benefits. Since our aim was not only to study the replicability of SELSA in a Turkish sample but rather to develop a well-adapted version for future studies, we decided to use EFA, which as an exploratory technique has more potential than CFA for further developing SELSA.

“Subsequent statistical analysis examines the sociodemographic correlates of loneliness results within the sample. While the analysis is adequate, some findings may be misleading due to the non-representative sample- particularly regarding the age of respondents (likely predominantly obtained from students and other available individuals), which affects the interpretation of results, especially the correlation of loneliness with age. Moreover, there is uneven representation in the comparative analysis of individual groups (where the majority of respondents are single and some described groups are particularly small [7 cohabiting]). However, these analyses serve as a supplement to an otherwise successful verification of the questionnaire's adaptation. I strongly recommend that these conclusions be labeled as partial findings and that the aforementioned methodological limitations of the research sample selection be reflected upon as the work's limitations (in the discussion).”

This is very true, thank you for highlighting this. We have added a new table describing social networks and extensive discussion about the sample. We hope that these additions help readers in evaluating the role of this contribution.

I would also like to add some minor technical notes: I would recommend some further clarification; for example,

We have addressed all the technical notes which you kindly provided. Thank you for them!

Reviewer 2 Report

The study examines the adapted version of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for the Turkish language. The study looks nicely executed and well reported. However, I have a few comments that I hope will improve the manuscript before publication.

1) The introduction section may use some subtitles (e.g. theory part, measurement part).

2) The literature provides evidence for the effects of the COVID period on loneliness (e.g., Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis.American Psychologist, 77(5), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005; Luchetti, M., Lee, J. H., Aschwanden, D., Sesker, A., Strickhouser, J. E., Terracciano, A., & Sutin, A. R. (2020). The trajectory of loneliness in response to COVID-19. American Psychologist, 75(7), 897–908. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000690; Groarke, J. M., Berry, E., Graham-Wisener, L., McKenna-Plumley, P. E., McGlinchey, E., & Armour, C. (2020). Loneliness in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-sectional results from the COVID-19 Psychological Wellbeing Study. PLOS ONE, 15(9), e0239698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239698). As the data collection was done after the COVID-19 restrictions, I wonder what the authors think about this and its relations to different dimensions of loneliness.

3) Table 2: Please include item numbers or arrange items according to factor loadings to improve readability.

4) Please provide some descriptive information about the social network data, as it seems to be analysed later.

5) Table 1 shows that the marital status of self/parents and education is quite unevenly distributed. The authors should comment on this in relation to the ANOVA results (the paper might benefit from a limitations/future suggestions section).

6) Although the authors make age and gender comparisons, it might be interesting to examine the interaction between these two variables in relation to loneliness (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110066)

7) Please consider dividing the paragraph in the Discussion section (L397-...) into separate sections, as it is quite difficult to keep track of.

8) Not mandatory, but it may be helpful to include the Turkish version as an appendix.

N/A

Author Response

Thank you for your comments, which were very helpful to us.

• The introduction section may use some subtitles (e.g. theory part, measurement part).

Thank you for suggesting this. We followed your advice and added subtitles.

2) The literature provides evidence for the effects of the COVID period on loneliness (e.g., Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis.American Psychologist, 77(5), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005; Luchetti, M., Lee, J. H., Aschwanden, D., Sesker, A., Strickhouser, J. E., Terracciano, A., & Sutin, A. R. (2020). The trajectory of loneliness in response to COVID-19. American Psychologist, 75(7), 897–908. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000690; Groarke, J. M., Berry, E., Graham-Wisener, L., McKenna-Plumley, P. E., McGlinchey, E., & Armour, C. (2020). Loneliness in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-sectional results from the COVID-19 Psychological Wellbeing Study. PLOS ONE, 15(9), e0239698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239698). As the data collection was done after the COVID-19 restrictions, I wonder what the authors think about this and its relations to different dimensions of loneliness.

This is a very interesting suggestion. We did not unfortunately include any measures related to COVID-19 isolation measures or change in social relations during the pandemic. COVID-19 stringency index shows that the measures in Turkey were not as strict as in some countries in Western Europe. Taken that and the more collectivistic family structure (much fewer live alone than in Western Europe) into account, and the pandemic impact on loneliness might be less than in many other countries. Nevertheless, this would have been a great to include into study. However, we decided to exclude the discussion related to COVID-19 since we do not have any measures related to that.

3) Table 2: Please include item numbers or arrange items according to factor loadings to improve readability.

Done.

4) Please provide some descriptive information about the social network data, as it seems to be analysed later.

We have added more information about this.

5) Table 1 shows that the marital status of self/parents and education is quite unevenly distributed. The authors should comment on this in relation to the ANOVA results (the paper might benefit from a limitations/future suggestions section).

We have added a discussion about this issue.

6) Although the authors make age and gender comparisons, it might be interesting to examine the interaction between these two variables in relation to loneliness (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110066)

Thank you very much for this suggestion. We analysed the interaction in detail and added a new figure.

7) Please consider dividing the paragraph in the Discussion section (L397-...) into separate sections, as it is quite difficult to keep track of.

 While the Discussion is short, we followed your suggestion and divided it.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the revision. All my concerns have been addressed.