Community Professionals’ Response to Intimate Partner Violence Against Rural Older Women

The experience of intimate partner violence among older women: A narrative review

“…One US study identified that service use was limited amongst older women due to staff education and poor inter-agency collaboration [ 55 ]. Similar findings were identified through qualitative methods in a further US study [ 56 ] and a lack of dedicated services for older women was highlighted in another [ 57 ]. These problems could potentially be addressed by government recommendations; in one study, state recommendations resulted in an increase in provision of tailored IPV services for older women within 5 years [ 54 ].…”

“… For women aged 55+: 36% provided outreach services; 29.8% had provided direct services or a referral to at least one woman; 19.6% had served at least one woman via a crisis line; 40.1% had served at least one woman via a support group. Areas for improvement: education; training; collaboration with aging agencies [ 56 ] To describe community professionals’ awareness, perceptions and experience in providing support to older women experiencing intimate partner violence. N = 87 Community professionals likely to encounter women experiencing IPV USA Qualitative focus group study.…”

Intimate Partner Violence in the Golden Age: Systematic Review of Risk and Protective Factors

“…Furthermore, the research conducted in many areas of the world (e.g., Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, Africa) and in different social contexts (e.g., rural areas or immigrants and ethnic minorities) shows cultural differences although the selected construct (IPV) has been defined in the same way in cross-cultural papers. Among these, the most studied contexts and ethnic groups in the literature about IPV and aging are the Western (US) rural areas (Teaster et al, 2006 ; Brossoie and Roberto, 2015 ; Weeks et al, 2016 ; Roberto and McCann, 2018 ) and Asian elders (both residents in Southeast Asia and immigrants in Western countries) (Yan and Chan, 2012 ; Yan, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2015 ; Cheung et al, 2016 ; Han et al, 2017 ; Nam and Lincoln, 2017 ; Qin and Yan, 2018 ). The reason why so much literature has been produced about these cultures is made clearer later in this article.…”

“…Band-Winterstein's papers are characterized by a phenomenological approach and discourse analysis. In qualitative studies, focus groups (Cianelli et al, 2013 ; Gil et al, 2015 ) have been used both to analyze and describe the phenomenon and to improve the participants' mental health, from a research-action and a community-ecological perspective (Brossoie and Roberto, 2015 ). The usefulness of including both qualitative and quantitative research is that the latter provides the prevalence and the risk/protective factors of the IPV phenomenon among the elderly, whereas the former can be helpful in explaining, somewhat clinically, the associations among the factors analyzed in quantitative research.…”

“…In fact, IPV seems to be more prevalent among ethnic minorities (yet at risk of other factors), often marked by powerful stressors (e.g., immigration) and machistic-patriarchal values (Sormanti et al, 2004 ; Paranjape et al, 2009 ; Liles et al, 2012 ; Cianelli et al, 2013 ). Late-life IPV also occurs more frequently in contexts where feminist trends have not arrived, such as in rural areas (Brossoie and Roberto, 2015 ; Weeks et al, 2016 ; Roberto and McCann, 2018 ) and in Confucian Asia (Yan and Chan, 2012 ; Yan, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2015 ; Cheung et al, 2016 ; Han et al, 2017 ; Nam and Lincoln, 2017 ; Qin and Yan, 2018 ). If aging itself brings more vulnerabilities for victims, it is probable that women remain subject to IPV and abuse due to the same social norms that impose the gender hierarchy (Crockett et al, 2015 ).…”