Risk factors associated with the mistreatment of the elderly according to the gender of the victims
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Abstract
Elder abuse is an increasingly recognized social problem because it is a violation of Human Rights and because of its serious consequences for the wellbeing and quality of life of older people. In addition, the prevalence of the problem could increase due to the aging population. Within this context, women appear in some studies as more frequent victims of abuse than men, although there are few studies that analyze why the risk of suffering domestic abuse may be higher in women than in men. The objective of this research was to assess whether there are different risk factors depending on the gender of the victims. The study involved 46 professional of social services teams who analyzed the situation of 202 elderly people (134 women and 68 men) through an assessment protocol that collected information on major risk factors for domestic abuse raised in the investigations. The results showed that although both genders shared a large number of risk factors, some turned out to be only significant for women: three factors related to the care-receiver (lack of income, problems of mental health and signs of cognitive decline) and four factors related to the caregiver (problems of mental health, problems with alcohol or other drugs, having experienced abuse at other times in his or her life and being financially dependent). These results could indicate some factors that increase the vulnerability of women and have important implications for the prevention and detection of risk situations of abuse.
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