Review: Alleviating loneliness in young people - a meta-analysis of interventions.

There have been no meta-analyses that have evaluated the effect of interventions for reducing loneliness among children and adolescents. We found intervention programmes targeted at youth are successful at reducing loneliness. Future interventions should be designed specially with loneliness in mind, with (a) universal programmes to help youth manage their experiences of transient loneliness, and (b) targeted interventions for youth reporting chronic loneliness. They should also examine the longer-term outcomes of the interventions. Future interventions should be designed, evaluated and then documented using guidelines on how to write up an intervention evaluation.