The prevalence of potentially abusive behaviours in family caregiving: findings from a national survey of family carers of older people.

BACKGROUND

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.

OBJECTIVE

to determine the prevalence of potentially abusive behaviours towards older people by family carers.

DESIGN

a postal cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of family carers of community-dwelling older people.

SUBJECTS

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.

METHODS

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%.

RESULTS

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.

CONCLUSIONS

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.