Analysis of the psychometric properties of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in the Polish adolescent sample

The current study examines the psychometric properties of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: structural validity, reliability and external validity. We conducted a study on a sample of 247 high school students, all aged 16. In order to verify hypotheses, scales measuring feeling of loneliness, shyness and self-esteem were administered. As a result of confirmatory factor analyses, it has been demonstrated that the structure of R-UCLA is three-factorial, the factors presents as follows: (1) intimate others, referring to the feeling of exclusion; (2) social others, referring to the lack of closeness and support in relationships; and (3) belonging and affiliation, referring to the lack of community bonds—all of which are reliable in their measurement as well as the total score of R-UCLA. Moreover, we demonstrated that the feeling of loneliness is positively related with shyness and negatively related with self-esteem. The obtained results support using the R-UCLA among Polish adolescents.