ELDERLY ABUSE: RISK FACTORS AND NURSING ROLE

Background. Elderly abuse is still an hidden problem, often underestimated. It is much more common than the data available suggest. Unfortunately it is expected to grow with the progressive increase of elderly population in the future. Aim. To examine the available literature in the last five years to define the state of art on this phenomenon, with particular regard to the nursing role in the elderly abuse, focusing on the possible types of mistreatment, the motivations and preventive interventions. Method. Articles published in the last 5 years regarding the mistreatment of the elderly were selected, by using scientifically recognized databases such as PubMed, Cochrane Library, Medline, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge. Several keywords were used for the query among which "elderly abuse" and "elderly abuse in nursing home". Moreover, to better understand the entity of the phenomenon, we also searched the corresponding keywords for child abuse. Results. Considering the Scopus database, only 78 out of 1342 published articles in the last 5 years are dealing with the abuse of elderly in relation to the nursing, representing a very small part (5.81%) of the considered sample. Comparing the number of articles, the ratio child/elderly was equal to 1/0.04, underlying the poor interest of the research on this phenomenon. Moreover, it was observed that the elderly abuse in nursing home is still underreported in both original articles and reviews. Conclusions. Despite the aging of population, the elderly abuse and neglect still remains a hidden problem, overlooked and underestimated also in literature.