A Path to Prevention of Elder Abuse in Long-term Care. General Population Prevalence Study

The goal of this cross-sectional study is to learn about how common experiences of different forms of abuse are among people over the age of 65 years in Sweden. The main question it aims to answer is:

• What is the prevalence of abuse of older people in Sweden?

Participants are recruited through a random selection of people over 65 years from the populations register. Eligible participants are asked to answer a questionnaire including items about experiences of emotional, physical, sexual or financial abuse as well as neglect.

Detailed Description Main aim

- Investigate the prevalence of abuse of older people in Sweden

Secondary aims:

* Investigate factors associated with reporting abusive experiences, e.g., health factors, frailty, care dependence
* Investigate resilience factors associated with abusive experiences, e.g., social support, positive emotion regulation and sense of purpose.

Study design and data collection Cross-sectional questionnaire study using a combination of digital and postal questionnaires and carried out by Statistics Sweden. A national representative sample of older adults will be used.

The invitation to participate and questionnaire will be sent to altogether 16 000 older adults (≥ 65 years) selected from the population register at random. To be able to provide information about experiences of abuse among both men and women, in all age groups and among the most vulnerable population, older adults residing in care facilities, the sample is stratified according to the information given in the study population description. Population weights will be used in analyses.

Material:

The questions about abusive experiences used in the study is part of the "REAGERA-S20" questionnaire developed and validated in a separate study (Clinical Trial register number NCT06659822). In addition, other relevant and validated questionnaires are included, e.g., The Tilburg Frailty Indicator, the UCLA loneliness scale, the Positive Emotional Regulation scale and a scale measuring sense of purpose.

In addition, statistics from Swedish registers concerning e.g., usage of home care services, sociodemographic factors and indicators of health status will be used to explore factors associated with elder abuse on different levels of the socio-ecological framework.

Analysis:

Prevalence will be reported for the different types of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, financial abuse and neglect) in different relational contexts (partner, child, staff, other known perpetrator, unknown perpetrator).

Regression analyses will be used to investigate associations between reporting different forms of abuse and factors on different levels of the socio-ecological model. On an individual and relational level characteristic of respondents, e.g., age, educational level, own previous victimization, resilience factors as well as frailty and different health indicators from registers will be considered. On the community and societal level factors such as living conditions will be considered.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* Age 65 or older (born in 1959 or earlier)

Exclusion Criteria:

* None