Domestic elder abuse and associated factors in elderly women in Tehran

Background and Aim: Elderly people often are abused in many ways with serious and pasting consequences. Elder abuse remains one of the most hidden forms of family conflict and it is anticipated that it is rising in many countries which are rapidly experiencing population aging. The purpose of study is to investigate the status of domestic elder abuse in elderly women and their related factors in Tehran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study conducted in 2017 on 260 women aged 60 and older, selected through multistage random sampling. The information of abuse and its risk factors was collected through interviews with the elderly in their homes. To measure domestic elderly abuse, the standard domestic elderly abuse questionnaire was used. The ordinal logistic test was used in Stata 12 to identify the factors related to elder abuse. Results: Results showed that 90.4% of subjects have experienced at least one type of abuse, which the highest rate of abuse was authority deprivation (68.5%), and the lowest was rejection (11.2%). The ordinal logistic analysis showed that the chance of being in higher levels of abuse is significantly higher in elderly people over 70 years than older people aged 60-62 years (OR=2.07, CI: 1.03- 4.17). The chance of being in higher classes of abuse in the illiterate elderly than in literate elderly, elderly with a household size ≥2 compared to the elderly with a lower household size and the elderly with an income level of less than 8 million Rials than the elderly with an income level above 15 million Rials was more, which was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Results showed that Domestic elder abuse is common in older women. Oldage is an important risk factor for Domestic elder abuse in elderly women in Tehran. Managing and preventing elderly abuse is an important issue that needs to be addressed.

کلیدواژه ها:

Domestic elder abuse ، Elderly women ، Risk factor