Relationship between General Health and Elder Abuse in Older Adults

Elder abuse is one of the challenges in caring the seniors that can disrupt their general health. The goal of the current study was to determine the relationship between general health and elder abuse among older adults referring to health centers in Sari, Iran 2021.

A descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 347 older people who were selected by cluster random sampling. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, General Health Questionnaire–28 (GHQ-28), and Domestic Elder Abuse Questionnaire through interviews. Data analysis was carried out in SPSS V22 applying descriptive statistics, independent t-test, analysis of variance, multiple linear regression, and Pearson correlation coefficient.

In this study, the mean age of the older people was 72.86±8.62 years and 53.9% of the participants were men. The highest and lowest prevalence of abuse were associated with emotional neglect (72.9%) and ostracism (9.8%), respectively. According to findings, 57.3% of the older people had poor general health. Significant correlation coefficients were found between most of the components of general health and elder abuse, except between neglect and physical health (P=0.105), anxiety and insomnia (P=0.707), and social functioning (P=0.211) and also between financial abuse and physical health (P=0.156).

Considering the high rate of abuse of older adults and its adverse effect on general health, preventive programs are needed to increase awareness and educate the seniors.