Department of Preventive and Social Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Univ Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
Braz Oral Res. 2013 May-Jun;27(3):197-202. doi: 10.1590/S1806-83242013005000011. Epub 2013 Apr 19.
Abuse of the elderly is a form of violence to come to the public's attention. Dental professionals are in an ideal position to identify physical abuse. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of elderly abuse and analyze the database of injury reports that can be identified by dental teams. A documentary analysis study developed by the Elderly Protection Police Station of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, was carried out. The information used came from 2,304 complaints filed at the aforementioned institution between the years of 2004 and 2006. The records of abuse are categorized as injury, neglect, mistreatment, theft, financial abuse, threat, disturbing the peace, atypical fact, and others. The injuries that could be identified by the dental team were classified according to the injury's location in the area of the head, face, mouth and neck. Descriptive analysis was performed, and chi-square tests were used to evaluate the distributions of the types of elder abuse in relation to sex and age. The most frequent of the different types of abuse was theft, with a prevalence of 17.8%, followed by disturbing the peace at 11.8%. Disturbing the peace, threat, and bodily injury were significantly associated with women. Elder abuse among women and men declines with age. The prevalence of head injury was 25% of the total injuries, most often in females, and in those aged < 70 years. Based on these results, it is necessary that the dental team observe the elderly person's appearance for suspicious physical signs.
虐待老年人是一种引起公众关注的暴力形式。牙科专业人员处于识别身体虐待的理想位置。本研究旨在评估老年人虐待的发生率，并分析牙科团队可以识别的伤害报告数据库。这是一项由南里奥格兰德州阿雷格里港老年人保护警察局开展的文献分析研究。使用的信息来自于上述机构在 2004 年至 2006 年间收到的 2304 份投诉。虐待记录分为伤害、忽视、虐待、盗窃、财务滥用、威胁、扰乱治安、非典型事实和其他。可以由牙科团队识别的伤害根据其在头部、面部、口腔和颈部区域的位置进行分类。进行了描述性分析，并使用卡方检验评估了与性别和年龄有关的各种类型的老年人虐待的分布情况。不同类型的虐待中最常见的是盗窃，发生率为 17.8%，其次是扰乱治安，发生率为 11.8%。扰乱治安、威胁和身体伤害与女性显著相关。女性和男性的老年人虐待随着年龄的增长而下降。头部受伤的发生率占总受伤人数的 25%，主要发生在女性和 70 岁以下的人群中。根据这些结果，牙科团队有必要观察老年人的外表，寻找可疑的身体迹象。
