Loneliness poses a formidable global health challenge in our volatile, post-pandemic world. Prior studies have identified promising interventions to alleviate loneliness, however, little is known about their effectiveness. This study measured the effectiveness of educational entertainment (“edutainment”) and/or evidence-based, written health messages in alleviating loneliness and increasing intention to cope with loneliness. We recruited 1639 German participants, aged 18 years or older. We compared three intervention groups who received: (A) edutainment and written health messages, (B) only edutainment, or (C) only written health messages, against (D) a control group that received nothing. The primary outcomes were loneliness and intention to cope with loneliness. Participants were also invited to leave comments about the interventions or about their perception or experiences with loneliness. We found a small (d = 0.254) but significant effect of the written messages on increased intention to cope with loneliness (b = 1.78, t(1602) = 2.91, P = 0.004), while a combination of edutainment and written messages significantly decreased loneliness scores (b = −0.25, t(1602) = −2.06, P = 0.04) when compared with the control, even after adjusting for covariables including baseline values, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and hope. We also observed significantly higher self-esteem scores after exposure to a combination of edutainment and written messages (b = 0.821, t(1609) = 1.76, one-tailed P = 0.039) and significantly higher hope scores after exposure to edutainment-only (b = 0.986, t(1609) = 1.85, one-tailed P = 0.032) when compared with the control group. Our study highlights the benefits of using written messages for increasing intention to cope with loneliness and a combination of edutainment and written messages for easing loneliness. Even in small “doses” (less than 6 min of exposure), edutainment can nurture hope, and edutainment combined with written messages can boost self-esteem.

在我们动荡的大流行后世界中，孤独构成了巨大的全球健康挑战。先前的研究已经确定了缓解孤独感的有希望的干预措施，但对其有效性知之甚少。这项研究衡量了教育娱乐（“寓教于乐”）和/或基于证据的书面健康信息在缓解孤独感和增强应对孤独感的意愿方面的有效性。我们招募了 1639 名年龄在 18 岁或以上的德国参与者。我们比较了三个干预组，他们收到：（A）寓教于乐和书面健康信息，（B）仅寓教于乐，或（C）仅书面健康信息，与（D）未收到任何信息的对照组。主要结果是孤独感和应对孤独感的意愿。参与者还被邀请对干预措施或他们对孤独的看法或经历发表评论。我们发现 书面信息对增加应对孤独感的意愿有微小（d = 0.254）但显着的影响（ b  = 1.78，t（1602）= 2.91，P  = 0.004），而寓教于乐和书面信息的结合显着降低 即使在调整了包括基线值、自尊、自我效能和希望在内的协变量后，与对照组相比，孤独感得分（b  = -0.25，t（1602）= -2.06，P = 0.04）。我们还观察到，在接触寓教于乐和书面信息的组合后，自尊得分显着较高（b  = 0.821，t（1609）= 1.76，单尾P  = 0.039），并且在仅接触寓教于乐后，希望得分显着较高（ 与对照组相比，b  = 0.986，t (1609) = 1.85，单尾P = 0.032)。我们的研究强调了使用书面信息来增强应对孤独感的意愿以及结合寓教于乐和书面信息来缓解孤独感的好处。即使是小“剂量”（接触时间少于 6 分钟），寓教于乐也可以培养希望，而寓教于乐与书面信息相结合可以增强自尊。