Analysis of the Situation of Abuse Suffered Outside the Institution Older People in the Context of Residential Care

Within the elderly population, the specific circumstances that some of the elderly find themselves due to certain socio-cultural factors make them more likely to be abused while residing in assisted living residences, due to the facts that the abuse is coming from the organisation it is unlikely to be reported, or brought to the attention of others, making it difficult to detect and, as a result, an issue not often discussed. We intend to investigate these possibilities; however, due to lack of information on this subject, we aim to address this issue by investigating the number of elderly people living in nursing homes who have suffered abuse due to agents outside of the organisation, such as the family, other residents and Friends. A brief questionnaire was created on an Excel Spreadsheet for the collection of data for this study, these questionnaires where then passed on the social workers of 4 assisted living residences, in the geographical scope of the Murcia region. The data collected correspond to the time period between January and December 2013. The results lead us to believe that the principal risk factors associated with this type of abuse is being a woman, a widow and with and age of about 80 years. Psychological abuse from family members was the most frequently reported type of abuse in the study.