Lafferty Attracta, Fealy Gerard, Downes Carmel, Drennan Jonathan
UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Heath Systems, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Age Ageing. 2016 Sep;45(5):703-7. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afw085. Epub 2016 May 25.
family caregiving can be both rewarding and fulfilling; however, conflicts can occur in the caregiving relationship, and some family carers may engage in behaviours that could be potentially harmful to the older person for whom them provide care.
to determine the prevalence of potentially abusive behaviours towards older people by family carers.
a postal cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of family carers of community-dwelling older people.
a randomly selected sample of family carers in receipt of a social welfare payment for the care they provide to a relative aged 65 and older.
a self-completion questionnaire was posted to 4,000 family carers of older people across Ireland, and a total of 2,311 eligible completed questionnaires were returned, yielding a response rate of 58%.
more than a third of family carers (36.8%) reported that they engaged in potentially harmful behaviours towards their older family member in the 3 months prior to the survey. Of those potentially harmful behaviours, a third (35.9%) reported that they engaged in potentially harmful psychological behaviours and 8% reported engaging in potentially harmful physical behaviours.
potentially abusive carer behaviours need to be detected at an early stage so that preventive interventions can be introduced to avert caregiving situations deteriorating into serious cases of elder abuse.
家庭照料既有益又能带来满足感；然而，照料关系中可能会出现冲突，一些家庭照料者可能会做出对他们所照料的老年人有潜在危害的行为。
确定家庭照料者对老年人实施潜在虐待行为的发生率。
对全国具有代表性的社区居住老年人家庭照料者样本进行邮寄横断面调查。
随机抽取的因照料65岁及以上亲属而领取社会福利金的家庭照料者样本。
向爱尔兰各地4000名老年人家庭照料者邮寄自填式问卷，共收回2311份合格的完整问卷，回复率为58%。
超过三分之一的家庭照料者（36.8%）报告称，在调查前3个月内，他们对年长的家庭成员实施了潜在危害行为。在这些潜在危害行为中，三分之一（35.9%）报告称实施了潜在危害心理行为，8%报告实施了潜在危害身体行为。
需要尽早发现照料者的潜在虐待行为，以便采取预防性干预措施，避免照料情况恶化为严重的虐待老年人案件。
