Loneliness is a well-established risk factor for poor physical health. Much less is known about
how loneliness affects patient-reported outcomes (PROs), such as somatic symptoms, which are increasingly
important for guiding symptom management and assessing quality of patient care. The current
study investigates whether (a) loneliness and social isolation predict cold symptoms independent of each other, and (b) whether loneliness is a more robust risk factor than objective social isolation for experiencing cold symptoms.
Giovanni Battista Quadrone: Every Occasion is Good. Artist: Giovanni Battista Quadrone (1844–1898). Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Available here.