Elder abuse’s correlation to health and resilience of older adults

Abstract

ABSTRACTElder abuse is a frightening reality among older adults that has repercussions to their health and resilience. The purpose of this research was to determine the relationship of elder abuse to the health and resilience of older adults in an urban community in the Philippines. The aim is to establish health and resilience interventions for the participants. A descriptive correlational design was utilized in the study with several tools. A sociodemographic questionnaire (SDQ) for older adults was used with the Experience of Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI) questionnaire. The PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) questionnaire was availed to know the health status of the participants and resilience was measured using the Connor–Davidson Resilience tool. Descriptive statistics described the information collected from the variables. Chi-square operates to determine the correlation of the variables with the sociodemographic profile of the participants. Results showed that less probability of exposure to elder abuse among older adults implies a strong resiliency score. However, the relationship between resiliency and health is not significant and a negative relationship is seen between the two. This means that as the participants become resilient, the more these older adults do not have physical, anxiety, depression, and fatigue issues. Experience of abuse and health, on the other hand, yield a negative moderate correlation, which means that as exposure to elder abuse decreases, the health of the older adults increases. The study concludes that continuous employment in old age could improve the resilience of older adults despite the experience of elder abuse. Economic freedom is an important factor for older adults to evade verbal abuse from family members and having security in old age is their ticket to better health and becoming more resilient.