Development of an Assessment Tool for Domestic Elder Abuse: Creation of Items from a Literature Review

Abstract

Background: With the " super-aging " of society, the prevalence of elder abuse can be expected to come under greater scrutiny. It will be important, therefore, to evaluate the presence and severity of elder abuse so as to prevent abuse and provide greater support for families. Aim: The aim of this study is to identify acts of elder abuse from a literature review in order to develop items for an assessment tool for domestic elder abuse. Methods: For the literature search, ICHUSHI Web, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and PubMed were utilized with the keywords " elder abuse " and " elderly abuse " . A search limited to original articles over the last five years con-taining descriptions of elder abuse was used in this study. In addition, through hand search, books and websites concerning elder abuse were also studied. Descriptions of the acts of elder abuse from the materials were extracted and categorized by content analysis based on seven subtypes of elder abuse (physical abuse, neglect, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, economical abuse, self-neglect, and social abuse). Results & Conclusions: The final analysis included 18 original articles, two books, and eight websites on elder abuse prevention. A total of 38 acts were extracted as items for the assessment tool, which can be used to evaluate the presence and severity of elder abuse. Further research will be needed to examine the validity and reliability of the assessment tool.