Bruising in older adults: what do social workers need to know?

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to discuss a research study exploring one aspect of adult safeguarding, that of non-accidental injury in older adults, specifically bruising. The study was undertaken with a view to analysing the current relevant literature and examining current practitioners' views concerning bruising in older adults in order to understand social work practitioners' awareness of and training in bruising. Design/methodology/approach -The paper describes a small-scale research study including two focus groups of social work and nursing practitioners. Themes arising from transcripts are coded by the analyst and are discussed in light of the summary and explanation of the literature reviewed following an initial scoping and exclusion exercise. Findings -The paper found that there is some evidence of typical and atypical non-accidental bruising emerging in older adults similar to that of children, but this tends to be treated as a clinical matter and mostly directed at medical staff. Research limitations/implications -Because of the chosen research aim, the research results focus on social work practitioners. Researchers are encouraged to explore other constituents further and to extend the scope of the literature review in terms of date and type. Practical implications -This paper will be of interest to all those concerned with the effective understanding of bruising as a sign of non-accidental injury in older people and especially the extent to which social work practitioners and others have to consider bruising during the course of their work with older people. Originality/value -This paper fulfils an identified need to study what social work practitioners and others need to know during the course of their work with older adults.

A qualitative study of adult protection procedures: threshold screening of new referrals by designated adult safeguarding practitioners

“…A number of participants commented on the need for more refresher training and opportunities to learn from each other. There are many research articles and other academic texts available that could provide practitioners with an evidence base to support them with their referral screening, covering topics such as: bruising in adults (Matthews and Reynolds, 2014), preventable skin damage, resident to resident mistreatment (Teresi et al , 2013) and human rights and sexuality (Heath et al , 2018), to name just a few. While practitioners are aware of a need to be informed and access learning, the challenge remains as to how to make this accessible when workloads are busy.…”