Awareness of Elder Abuse Among Community Health and Social Care Staff in Northern Ireland: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

This article reports on one of the first surveys of multidisciplinary staff awareness of elder abuse in this region of the United Kingdom (UK). Forty staff from eight professional groups in the Southern Health and Services Board area were surveyed about their knowledge of elder abuse, the types of help they thought they could offer the abused and the abuser, and the level of abuse in their current caseload. Thirty-five per cent of respondents had cases of physical, psychological, financial, and sexual abuse as well as care-giver neglect of people aged 65 and over in their caseloads. The findings suggest that while staff had differing levels of awareness of elder abuse, further training is necessary. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document

Financial abuse of older people: A case study

“…The development of theoretical explanations of financial elder abuse that consider the impact of ageism and sexism in the lives of older people and their families have the potential to enhance the judgement and decision making of social care professionals (Davies et al, 2011;McLaughlin and Lavery, 1999) because these frameworks can guide and inform practice. For example, ageism can restrict older people's ability to exercise control over their own lives (Wilson et al, 2009), including access to and utility of their own financial resources (Langan and Means, 1996).…”

“…McLaughlin and Lavery (1999) surveyed 40 staff from eight professional groups from Northern Ireland, including social workers, about their awareness of elder abuse. They found that no respondent gave a single definition of 'elder abuse' but instead defined abuse by typology; physical and psychological abuse was the most cited categories (80%).…”

“…Financial abuse is usually not reported by older people and in many cases is not even detected because of discomfort or denial, and yet it potentially has devastating effects (WHO/INPEA, 2002). Similarly, social care professionals often doubt their ability to identify it (Bagshaw et al, in press;McLaughlin and Lavery, 1999). This article examines, through a case study, the complexities of financial abuse to provide insights into why older people and human service workers may not detect such abuse or find discomfort in talking about it.…”

Impact of the elder abuse prevention and caregiver support law on system development among municipal governments in Japan

“…Finally, information lacked in backgrounds of the individual respondents of municipalities. Their specialization may have affected their assessment of difficulties in implementing activities [29], though its effect would be relatively small compared to system development in municipalities because of short term from the enactment of the law.…”

Older People’s Conceptualization of Elder Abuse and Neglect

“…There is increasing concern at the prevalence of elder abuse (Cooper, Selwood, & Livingston, 2008;World Health Organization, 2008), although there has been limited study of elder abuse in Ireland (McLaughlin & Lavery, 1999;Naughtan et al, 2010). There has been steady development of procedures and tools to support and guide practice (Anthony, Lehning, Austin, & Peck, 2009;Taylor, 2012) although current approaches to developing policies to address elder abuse have been predominantly driven by professionals and policy makers with limited input from older people themselves (Killick & Taylor, 2009).…”