Elder Abuse - Synthesis

Increasing attention is being directed to elder abuse.

Elder abuse is a complex and significant global social, health, and human rights issue which involves multiple levels of government and different agencies. Service providers and health professionals have moral, ethical, and regulatory responsibilities to identify, prevent, and redress harm and neglect.

The included systematic reviews, a scoping review, and literature reviews are of variable quality and include research of variable quality and rigour.

Many of the studies suffer from a small sample size.

Research into elder abuse is growing in quality and quantity but is hampered by a lack of agreement on definitions and measurement, and the hesitancy of people to disclosure information.

Only one review relates to elder abuse in a palliative care or end-of-life context and it focuses on dementia.