Abuse of Rural Elders in Mansoura Districts, Dakahlia, Egypt: Prevalence, Types, Risk Factors, and Lifestyle

Abstract

This study was carried out to explore the prevalence of elderly abuse, identify its types, associated risk factors and determine quality of their life in Rural Mansoura districts, Egypt. A cross-section study was conducted on a sample of 272 elders recruited from outpatient clinicsFamily Health Centers in Shawa & Berkin villages from May 1 to September 3, 2016. 200 (73.5%) elders accepted participation. A previously designed and validated questionnaires were used to collect data from participants. 46% of the studied elders were abused. The most frequent forms of abuse were negligence (40%) followed by psychological abuse (30.5%). Abuse was significantly higher among females (56.5%), farmers (67.2%), illiterates (55.5%) and living alone elders (68.5%). Elders with chronic diseases were significantly more abused (54.9%) especially diabetic and hypertensive elders (71.4%). Concerning lifestyle of the studied elders, 21% of them had bad health perception generally. The study showed that dependent elders exposed significantly to higher rates of abuse than independents with highly statistical significant.Logistic regression analysis revealed that being a female and previously working as farmer are 2.5 and 4.6 times more likely to be abused. On the other hand, sharing house with other partner or offspring and absence of chronic diseases are protective predictors against elder abuse. Governmental and NGOS support to elders in rural areas especially females and famers is highly recommended. Health insurance is necessary for health promotion, reduction of chronic disease and or disability to decrease dependency is crucial.

Factors associated with the risk of violence against older adult women: a cross-sectional study

“…In addition, the literature shows that older adults with a high number of comorbidities have a higher chance of suffering violence (44) . Reinforcing this analysis, a study developed in Dakahlia, Egypt, with 272 older adults concluded, based on the regression analysis, that having no chronic comorbidities is a protective factor for older adult women (45) .…”

Prevalence and risk factors for elder abuse: A community-based cross-sectional study from North West Turkey

“…Similarly, in studies conducted in Turkey, income less than expenses is one of the factors that increase the risk of exposure to abuse (Ergin et al, 2012;Kulakçı Altıntas & Korkmaz Aslan, 2019). Elderly people, who are vulnerable to external effects, have a higher need for caregivers, especially when they are dependent on others, when they have mental problems and/or when they cannot meet their needs (El-Khawaga et al, 2018;Friedman et al, 2017;Keller et al, 2019), which may affect their relationship with their caregiver and increase the risk of exposure to abuse (James, 2019).…”

“…The form developed by the researcher includes 11 items questioning the participants' sociodemographic characteristics such as age, sex, education level, income level, and their health-related characteristics such as the presence of a chronic disease, sleep problems (Arab-Zozani et al, 2018;El-Khawaga et al, 2018;Ergin et al, 2012).…”

“…The number of victims of abuse is estimated to reach 320 million in 2050 if the current level of elder abuse remains constant (Ho, Wong, Chiu, & Ho, 2017;World Health Organization, 2017). In studies aimed at determining the incidence of abuse in the elderly, abuse rates have been reported to range from 3% to 56.5% (Arab-Zozani et al, 2018;Aslan & Erci, 2019;Diniz et al, 2017;El-Khawaga, Eladawi, & Abdel-Wahab, 2018;Ergin et al, 2012;Kulakçı Altıntas & Korkmaz Aslan, 2019;Kurkurina et al, 2018;Pillemer, Burnes, Riffin, & Lachs, 2016;Yunus et al, 2017). In a meta-analysis of 52 studies from 28 different countries conducted by Yon et al, the overall frequency of abuse was determined as (Yon et al, 2017).…”

“…Studies show that socioeconomically disadvantaged elderly are at a higher risk of exposure to abuse (Arab-Zozani et al, 2018;Carmona-Torres et al, 2018;Ho et al, 2017;Şen & Meriç, 2020). Among the leading factors of abuse are advanced age (Joseph & Gonzalez, 2018;Kurkurina et al, 2018) female sex (Joseph & Gonzalez, 2018;Pillemer et al, 2016), low social status (Diniz et al, 2017), low education level (Diniz et al, 2017), low income level (Burnes et al, 2015;Pak, 2020), living in a rural area (Pak, 2020;Warren & Blundell, 2019), presence of mental problems in the elderly (Friedman et al, 2017;Kurkurina et al, 2018;Şen & Meriç, 2020), the relationship between the older person and his or her caregiver (Burnes et al, 2015;Keller et al, 2019;Pak, 2020), functional inadequacy (El-Khawaga et al, 2018;Friedman et al, 2017), social isolation (Friedman et al, 2017;Simone, Wettstein, Senn, Rosemann, & Hasler, 2016), and lack of social support (Burnes, Acierno, & Hernandez-Tejada, 2019;Simone et al, 2016).…”