Elder Abuse Characteristics Based on Calls to the National Center on Elder Abuse Resource Line - PubMed (original) (raw)

Elder Abuse Characteristics Based on Calls to the National Center on Elder Abuse Resource Line

Gali H Weissberger et al. J Appl Gerontol. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Characterizing the types of elder abuse and identifying the characteristics of perpetrators are critically important. This study examined the types of elder abuse reported to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) resource line. Calls were coded with regard to whether abuse was reported, types of abuse alleged, whether multiple abuse subtypes occurred, and who perpetrated the alleged abuse. Of the 1,939 calls, 818 (42.2%) alleged abuse, with financial abuse being the most commonly reported (449 calls, 54.9%). A subset of calls identified multiple abuse types (188, 23.0%) and multiple abusers (149, 18.2%). Physical abuse was most likely to co-occur with another abuse type (61/93 calls, 65.6%). Family members were the most commonly identified perpetrators (309 calls, 46.8%). This study reports the characteristics of elder abuse from a unique source of frontline data, the NCEA resource line. Findings point to the importance of supportive resources for elder abuse victims and loved ones.

Keywords: abuse and neglect; caregiving; mistreatment; observational studies.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Disclosure Statement

There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Frequency of abuse subtypes reported to the NCEA call center. Calls alleging isolation were part of the emotional subtype, per CDC guidelines (Hall et al., 2016). Bars are labeled with the number (%) of 818 total calls.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Pie chart displaying breakdown of number (%) of abusers alleged across the 818 call narratives reporting elder abuse.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Breakdown of reported abuser’s relationship to the victim across the 660 total instances in which a relationship was reported. There were 175 calls in which a relationship could not be determined. Bars are labeled with the number (%) of the 660 total relationships reported.

Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Frequency of abuser-victim relationships reported separately for the different abuse subtypes.

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