Abuse and neglect among elderly people living in a primary health care center area in izmir and evaluation of factors associated with elder abuse

This study is a descriptive study and has been carried out to determine whether 65 aged and older elderly people, living with their relative in Esentepe primary health care center area, had experienced abuse and neglect and to evaluate factors associated with elder abuse.Research sample was consist of 331 older people. Data collection was carried out on July through September, 2007. As a data collection instrument, questionary, intented for determining abuse and neglect which older people had experinced during the past six months, socio-demographic characteristic questionary, Katz Activities of Daily Living (ADL) İndex, The Standardized Mini Mental State Examination (SMMSE) were used. Chi-square test and logistic regression analyses were used in evaluation of data.It was found that elder adults who had experienced psychologicaly abuse was 9,4%, neglect was 8,2%, physical abuse was 4,2%, economic abuse was 2,1%, sexual abuse was 0,9%. It was determined that the ratio of older adults experiencing one or more of all types of abuse at the same time was 13,3 %. While being woman, having low education, living with spouse and his/her children, perceiving the family relation as fair or worse than fair were increasing abuse (p<0.05), it was determined that advanced age, family income, having a chronic desease and having a house didn?t affect experiencing abuse (p>0.05). It was determined that abuse was respectively 3,36(p<0.05), 2,43 (p>0.05), 3,94(p<0.05) and 8,72(p<0.05) times higher in elderly being women, having low education, living with spouse and his/her children and perceiving the family relation as fair or worse than fair.In conclusion, elder abuse is an significant problem which preventive precautions should be taken. For this reason, It is suggested that elder abuse should be entegrated in nursing education curriculum and in-service trainings, especially primary health care nurses should identify elders at risk, frequently observe this elders and carry out works to prevent elder abuse and mass communication means should be used to increase the awereness of public.Key words: Nursing, Elder people, Abuse, Neglect.