The Prevalence and Associated Factors of Elderly Abuse: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: The prevalence of elderly abuse varies between 2.2% and 30.1% in European countries. There is a limited number of studies that have investigated elderly abuse in Turkey. The aim of this study is to detect the prevalence and risk factors of elder abuse, identify the factors that can affect elderly abuse, and assess the possible measures to prevent this problem.
 Methods: We stratified the districts enrolled in family health centers to ensure that participants were from diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds of Edirne and formed a representative sample of 211 people. In addition to sociodemographic characteristics, our survey consisted of the Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test, the Geriatric Depression Scale-short form, the Standardised Mini-Mental State Examination, the Barthel Index for activities of daily living, and the Lawton-Brody instrumental activities of daily living scale.
 Results: The prevalence of elderly abuse was determined as 9.9%, and high abuse risk was 15.2%. We found that abuse risk was higher among older people who had no social security, lived alone, were abused physically or emotionally before, reported having bad family relations, and had fewer rooms at home which leads to a lack of privacy. Furthermore, we found significant relationships between abuse risk and the depression score.
 Conclusion: Elderly abuse is a risk for every person regardless of gender, education level, and economic status. As an invisible problem for societies, elderly abuse brings a great burden by leading to the loss of physical, mental, and psychological health. Preventive measures should be the primary goal. All results suggest that governments, non-governmental organizations, and health care providers should combat this problem by increasing patient literacy and ensuring lifestyle changes.