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Elder abuse has come to be recognized as any act of both commission or omission that causes harm or loss to elderly people. This can include active or passive neglect, violence, sexual or emotional abuse, various kinds of theft, and deprivation of the person’s human rights. Elder abuse has many causes. The Hastings and Prince Edward Council on Aging developed an Elder Abuse Community Response Protocol to help address this problem.

This paper details findings from a research study on elder abuse and neglect undertaken in Russia. A survey of 2881 older people aged 60 years and older who were known to Social Services in four districts of Saratov was undertaken to explore the extent of elder abuse and neglect in these areas. Psychological and emotional forms of abuse were found to be the most prevalent form of abuse across all districts.

This paper aims to offer a profile of domestic abuse of older women and its impact on their health and well-being; explore some of the conceptual tensions that exist in this field; and discuss current policy and practice responses to this group of victim-survivors.

It is a review paper drawing on material from a range of sources; it has policy, practice and research implications.

Although there is growing recognition that older women are victims of domestic abuse, it tends to be regarded as a “younger women’s issue” and to be subsumed under the umbrella of elder abuse. This not only removes the gendered element, but it also uncouples it from the lifecourse where, for many, its roots lie. It also tends to foreground “old age” as the primary dimension of risk. There is a tension between the justice-oriented approach of the domestic abuse system and the welfarist approach that imbues the safeguarding system. There is a need for integration between the two systems. Also, for the health and care system to be more alert to the needs of older women at risk, we need to achieve a more effective balance between protection and justice, accord a greater level of agency to older victim-survivors and ensure they have access to domestic abuse law, policy and appropriate support services.

More research is needed with older victim-survivors: listening to their lived experiences, coping strategies and pathways out of abuse. The issue also needs to be more visible.

Developing appropriate domestic abuse services for older women is critical. Practice lessons can be learnt too: especially greater integration of the safeguarding system with the domestic abuse system. Training is needed too for frontline health and social care staff about the distinctive nature of domestic abuse of older women.

Domestic abuse of older women needs to be spoken about and made more visible in society and inside services, including older people’s third sector services.

This paper adopts a critical lens and makes a number of new arguments.

The purpose of this study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate a tool to measure nurses’ knowledge of, attitude toward and practice regarding the elder abuse phenomenon.

This study is methodological research that was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the available tools related to knowledge, attitude and practice regarding elder abuse were identified through an extensive review of theoretical principles, previous research and related articles. The initial items were extracted and categorized. In the second stage, the psychometric properties of the tool were examined by assessing face validity, content validity, construct validity, internal consistency and stability. Four hundred nurses working in the hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were selected to determine the validity of the structure.

The initial tool consisted of 114 items extracted, 34 of which were removed according to the experts’ opinions. The face validity of the 80-item questionnaire was then examined. The number of the items was reduced to 74 after measuring the face validity. After the qualitative measurement of the content validity, three items were eliminated. After measuring the content validity using a quantitative approach, 8 other items were removed and 63 items remained. According to the content validity index, 1 more item was removed, reducing the number to 62. The construct validity approved three dimensions of knowledge, attitude and practice. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated to be 0.84. The stability was also confirmed through test–retest with a value of 0.85 for the whole scale.

The tool developed for assessing nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice regarding elder abuse has acceptable dependability and credibility. Given the advantages of this tool, including the simplicity and fluency of sentences, and the comprehensive evaluation of nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice regarding elder abuse, it is recommended to use this tool in relevant future studies.

Issues and developments that have occurred in relation to elder abuse, specifically concerning the domestic setting, will be briefly explored. Over the last 15 years, there has been increasing global recognition of abuse and neglect of older people who might be at risk of such forms of harm, as a social problem needing attention. The role of the media and media representations of elder abuse are clearly of relevance here and are the main focus of this chapter.

Around 500,000 older people are believed to be abused at any one time in the United Kingdom, with most victims of elder abuse being older women with a chronic illness or disability, according to statistics provided by the government information service (NHS Digital, 2019). Most of the abuse recorded relates to domestic settings within communities.

Gender-based violence and abuse amongst older women may be overlooked by health and social care providers. For older women, their gender seems to be forgotten or becomes hidden. Media representation of abuse against older people, particularly older women, does not assist this situation.

Against the backdrop of the global ageing population, it is fundamental that the particular experiences, needs and rights of older people are adequately understood, and that health and care professionals respond appropriately. This chapter explores these issues, in particular the role of the digital media and representations of elder abuse in familial settings and its impact on victims, potential victims, perpetrators, health and social care service providers and the general public.

Aging has detrimental effects on elders due to their physical health and financial hardship. Elders face neglect, insult and abuse in society due to causes related to physical health and financial issue from caregivers. This study aims to identify the measures of physical health and financial hardship and classifies elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories.

The propositions of existence and classifying elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories were tested by using discriminant analysis and their profiling was done by perceptual mapping technique.

The elder neglect category identified as a prominent category due to physical health while elder insult and abuse were caused by physical health and financial hardship both. The present study portrays the multi-dimensional facets related to elders’ ill-treatment. The elder’s ill-treatment categories were profiled to imply the measure of elevating elders’ dignity and care at a personal level and society at large.

This study classifies elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories. This classification may facilitate the medical practitioners, academicians and government and non-government social welfare agencies in understanding elder abuse with new perspectives.

The study of theoretical models explaining elder abuse has been one of the main gaps in the literature of the field. The extent of support of each theory is not clear. This study aims to conduct a systematic review to examine research supporting or opposing six theories of elder abuse: caregiver stress theory, social exchange theory, social learning theory, bidirectional theory, dyadic discord theory and the psychopathology of the caregiver.

This study conducts a systematic review of the literature. Seven databases were searched six times using different keywords about each theory.

This paper finds 26,229 references and then organised and analysed these references using pre-established criteria. In total, 89 papers were selected, which contained 117 results of interest; these papers were summarised and assessed for conceptual, methodological and evidence quality. The results showed evidence in favour of all the explored theories, except for social learning theory, whose results indicate multiple interpretations of the theory. This study finishes this paper by proposing that each of these theories might explain different facets of elder abuse and that more research is necessary to understand how the predictions of these different theories interact.

This paper presents an extensive review of the literature on theoretical explanations of elder abuse. The findings can be of value for selecting theories for prevention programmes or providing a summary of the evidence for researchers and practitioners interested in the theoretical explanation of elder abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to explore professionals’ perceptions of the barriers to help-seeking for victim-survivors of domestic abuse aged 60 years and over. Help-seeking as defined by Anderson and Saunders (2003) is not a single act or decision, but a complex and continuous process, victims engage in when seeking support.

A total of 50 qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with statutory practitioners and managers from 21 out of 22 local authorities in Wales. The research team worked collaboratively to produce a coding scheme which was subjected to a systematic coding exercise using the software package NVivo.

Professionals believed that older people’s “interconnectedness” with family, social embeddedness in the community and “meanings of the home” influenced help-seeking. The research suggests that for older victim-survivors of domestic abuse, age discrimination by practitioners, compounds older people’s experiences of help-seeking, restricting the range, quality and type of support provided. The paper demonstrates that a significant shift is required in practice to ensure that older people are in a position to make informed choices and their wishes are central in the decision-making process.

Further qualitative research is needed to explore what older people themselves believe are the factors that impact on statutory service engagement.

This study is the first in the UK to conduct Pan-Wales research on professionals’ views on help-seeking behaviours of older people. One of the key findings from the study is that professionals from the statutory sector feel that connections to the home and social networks strongly influence help-seeking for older victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to explore US Chinese older adults’ views regarding elder abuse interventions in order to understand barriers and facilitators of help-seeking behaviors.

The study design was qualitative, using a grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis. Community-based participatory research approach was implemented to partner with the Chicago Chinese community. A total of 37 community-dwelling Chinese older adults (age 60+) participated in focus group discussions.

Participants viewed many benefits of intervention programs. Perceived barriers were categorized under cultural, social, and structural barriers. Facilitators to implement interventions included increasing education and public health awareness, integrating social support with existing community social services, as well as setting an interdisciplinary team. Perpetrators intervention strategies were also discussed.

This study has wide policy and practice implications for designing and deploying interventions with respect to elder abuse outcome. Modifying the cultural, social, and structural barriers that affect health behavior of Chinese older adults contribute to the salience of elder abuse interventions in this under-served.

Elder abuse is the matter of grave concern in recent times in India. Today, older people are facing the abusive behaviour such as maltreatment, mental and physical torture and heedless ignominy from the family and the society. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of elder abuse in Indian socio-cultural context and also focuses on the causes of elder abuse and abusers.

Mixed method design has been applied in this paper. The study has been conducted from October 2012-January 2013 on a sample of 220 older people living in both rural and urban areas of Lucknow, India. The data have been analysed through descriptive and narrative analysis.

The study finds that the emotional abuse is more common among the older people, which raises the feeling of insecurity, depression and isolation. The study also points out that the respect, honour, status and authority which were enjoyed by the elderly in the traditional society, have gradually started declining. Moreover, the study finds that the family members, do not provide proper food, clothing and medical facilities in rural areas.

Since the sample of older respondents was small and focused on those living in a particular area of one state, the authors cannot generalise from this study to include the great diversity of experience and difference in perceptions among the older people even within a particular state. However, widespread and diverse types of accounts of elder abuse were reported even in these settings, which can help indicate areas for future research and policies.

This is an original paper, which is based on the experiences of older people living in rural-urban areas and discussed the elder abuse in socio-cultural context.