Piloting the older adult financial exploitation measure in adult safeguarding services

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

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.

Elder Abuse

Elder abuse is generally defined as the maltreatment of individuals over the age of 60, although no precise definition exists in the literature. Types of abuse include, but are not limited to, psychological/emotional, physical, sexual abuse, and financial exploitation. Certain risk factors exist leaving an individual more susceptible to abuse, and many obstacles exist preventing the elimination of abuse. There are also identifiable risk factors that increase the likelihood of perpetration of abuse. This systematic review provides an overview of the scope of the problem, types of abuse, risk factors, characteristics of abusers, and key aspects of elder abuse prevention.

The Role of Social Support in Elder Financial Exploitation Using a Community Sample

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Social support is known to be an important protective factor against elder financial exploitation (FE), yet few empirical studies have examined the relationship between FE and distinct components of social support. Perceived social support, social network size, and interactions with close network members (positive and negative) were measured separately and tested as potential predictors of FE.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Three hundred and ninety-five community-dwelling adults aged 60 and older were recruited to complete a 90-minute survey and interview. We used OLS regression to examine the role of social support in FE. Other risk factors associated with FE including dependency, poor physical health, depression, cognition, and demographic characteristics were included as potential predictors.

RESULTS

Negative interactions with close network members predicted FE, and remained predictive when all other variables and social support factors were included in the model. Other social support factors were not unique predictors of FE.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Negative social interactions with close network members are important to assess and consider in FE prevention and intervention programs; relationships between social interactions and other risk factors warrant further attention.