Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Ageing, National Institute of Health and Science on Aging, IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy.
Laboratory of Geriatric Pharmacoepidemiology, National Institute of Health and Science on Aging, IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 14;16(4):e0250039. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250039. eCollection 2021.
Elder abuse is a growing public health question among policy makers and practitioners in many countries. Research findings usually indicate women as victims, whereas male elder abuse still remains under-detected and under-reported. We aimed to investigate the prevalence, severity and chronicity of abuse (psychological, physical, physical injury, sexual, and financial) against older men, and to scrutinize factors (e.g. demographics) associated with high chronicity of any abuse.
Randomly selected older men (n = 1908) aged 60-84 years from seven European cities (Ancona, Athens, Granada, Kaunas, Stuttgart, Porto, Stockholm) were interviewed in 2009 via a cross-sectional study concerning abuse exposure during the past 12 months.
Findings suggested that prevalence of abuse towards older men varied between 0.3% (sexual) and 20.3% (psychological), with severe acts between 0.2% (sexual) and 8.2% (psychological). On the whole, higher chronicity values were for injury, followed by psychological, financial, physical, and sexual abuse. Being from Sweden, experiencing anxiety and having a spouse/cohabitant/woman as perpetrator were associated with a greater "risk" for high chronicity of any abuse. For men, severity and chronicity of abuse were in some cases relatively high.
Abuse towards older men, in the light of severe and repeated acts occurring, should be a source of concern for family, caring staff, social work practice and policy makers, in order to develop together adequate prevention and treatment strategies.
虐待老人是许多国家政策制定者和从业者日益关注的公共卫生问题。研究结果通常表明女性是受害者，而男性虐待老人的现象仍然未被充分发现和报告。我们旨在调查针对老年男性的虐待（心理、身体、身体伤害、性和财务）的流行率、严重程度和慢性程度，并仔细研究与任何虐待的高慢性程度相关的因素（例如人口统计学）。
2009 年，从七个欧洲城市（安科纳、雅典、格拉纳达、考纳斯、斯图加特、波尔图、斯德哥尔摩）中随机选择年龄在 60-84 岁之间的老年男性（n=1908），通过一项横断面研究，在过去 12 个月中对虐待暴露情况进行了访谈。
研究结果表明，针对老年男性的虐待流行率在 0.3%（性）和 20.3%（心理）之间有所不同，严重行为在 0.2%（性）和 8.2%（心理）之间。总的来说，伤害的慢性程度较高，其次是心理、财务、身体和性虐待。来自瑞典、患有焦虑症以及配偶/同居者/女性施虐者与高慢性任何虐待的“风险”增加相关。对于男性来说，虐待的严重程度和慢性程度在某些情况下相对较高。
鉴于严重和反复发生的行为，针对老年男性的虐待应该引起家庭、护理人员、社会工作实践和政策制定者的关注，以便共同制定出充分的预防和治疗策略。
