Global Approaches to Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Elder Abuse Prevention: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Public health professionals use a three-pronged approach to address broad-reaching issues of societal concern: primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Applying this framework to the study of elder abuse, the purpose of this review is to describe the status of elder abuse prevention research on a global scale. Elder abuse prevention articles published between 2015 and 2021 were identified through electronic bibliographic searches (PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, APA PsycINFO, and AgeLine). After removing articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, articles were sorted into the three main prevention types and further divided into subcategories for a more in-depth review. Most of the studies identified were conducted in North America ( n = 42). Of the 72 articles identified, 13 articles focused on primary prevention (agism, education, and intervention), 35 articles focused on secondary prevention (developing and evaluating screening tools, identifying and reporting abuse, and barriers to detecting and reporting abuse), and 21 focused on tertiary prevention (professional response to cases of abuse, intervention methods, and impact of policy). Collectively, findings bring greater understanding of elder abuse as a public health problem and identify ways of addressing the complexities of elder abuse. Several gaps were identified in the elder abuse prevention literature including the need for global research that includes older adults as stakeholders, evidence-based education and intervention programs, and cultural sensitive and valid tools to identify elder abuse.

Sexual Orientation and Risk for Elder Abuse: Findings from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

“…Unlike some previous studies [44,45], the present study revealed higher odds of experiencing psychological abuse for the highest income group (OR = 1.28) as well as for older adults who are still working (OR = 1.25). It is noteworthy that the National Elder Mistreatment Study in the United States had previously revealed that relatively younger age (60-69 years vs 70+) and being employed were significant predictors of emotional abuse [46].…”

Older people's experiences of elder abuse in residential care settings: A scoping review

“…In recent years, there has been an increased focus on elder abuse as a significant complex social and pervasive health issue (Atkinson & Roberto, 2023; Donnelly & O'Brien, 2022). The awareness of elder abuse and its impact on older people has been gaining attention among researchers, policymakers and the general public worldwide.…”

Narrativas de violência e saúde mental: experiências e territórios

“…A violência interpessoal apresenta maior frequência entre homens idosos do que a autoprovocada (Santos et al, 2022;Lopes et al, 2018a). No entanto, existem muitas falhas na identificação de violência contra o idoso, por exemplo, há poucos relatos e programas de educação e intervenção baseados em evidência e instrumentos validados e culturalmente sensíveis para a identificação de violência em idosos (Atkinson;Roberto, 2024).…”