The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has developed the following working definition of elder abuse:
a single or repeated act or failure to act, including threats, that results in harm or distress to an older person. This occurs where there is an expectation of trust and/or where there is a power imbalance between the party responsible and the older person.
This background paper sets out the approach to the development of this working definition of abuse of older people.
The working definition is intended to be applied in the Elder Abuse National Research Program and, in particular, to inform the development of data collection instruments for an Australian Prevalence Study.
The proposed working definition set out in this paper was applied and tested as part of the Prevalence Study.
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