Malos tratos a las personas mayorespercepción, conocimientos y barreras para la detección

Zusammenfassung

ABSTRACT Introduction Elderly people constitute the segment of society that is growing faster around the world. Although elder abuse is not a new phenomenon, it has recently got to attract our society's interest and more specifically, the interest of health professionals. In the last years, great progress has been made in the definition of what constitute elder abuse, both about its classification and its consequences' analysis, but a few cases are still be informed and detected. It doesn't seem to exist a deep awareness of the problem behind, neither among the society nor among the health professionals; consequently, adequate routine detection methods don't exist, and least of all, prevision ones Objectives Main objective Analysing elderly abuse perception, also health professionals' knowledge and their position on it, and finally, the barriers they present for its identification and its denunciation. Given the above, they have all been carrying out in order to evaluate the current situation of the problem in our surroundings, and consequently, being able to set future interventions. Secondary objectives Being aware of the elderly abuse' perception that health professional, social workers and general population have. Evaluating health professionals and social workers knowledge and attitudes about elderly abuse. Identifying barriers to elderly abuse reporting, presented by health professionals and social workers, in order to achieve a better understanding of the detection and notification problems. Methods Observational, descriptive and prospective study. The final sample consisted of 642 individuals, of which 376 were general population, 161 of them were health professionals and 105 social workers. We analyse the elderly abuse's perception across the three groups with The Caregiving Scenario Questionnaire. Health professionals' attitudes and knowledge about elderly abuse, as well as barriers to the detection and reporting of it were collected. Variables related to personal and professional contact established by people from the three study groups with elderly people and suffering from dementia, as well as variables related to training on elderly abuse, were also analysed. Results 84.4% of professionals assessed the training received on elderly abuse negatively, and only 9.3% said that their training prepared them sufficiently to act in cases of elder abuse. The percentage of health professionals that was able to describe correctly the strategies categorized as abuse was significantly higher than in the case of the general population, with no significant differences between health professionals and social workers. Professionals who have taken part in the studio are not fully familiar with the legal guidelines and protocols for elder abuse in Spain. The refusal of the person abused to report the case of abuse was the main reason given by health professionals and social workers for failing to report suspected abuse cases (54.7% and 58.1% respectively). Health professionals in a greater extent than social workers, present barriers to the notification of elder abuse, which are related to the lack of knowledge in addressing abuse, and the lack of understanding of the legislation and even its own definition. However, social workers are more concerned about reasons related to the patient's autonomy, the doctor-patient confidentiality, patient's quality of life and future professional-patient relationships. Conclusion We consider a priority aim to qualify the professionals by means of a specific formation. The prevention is a key aim in the elder abuse for what sensitize the society must be a priority strategy to humanize and to promote the good treatment in the attention to old people.