Elderly abuse (EA) is a single or frequent act or failure to take appropriate action that occurs in any relationship in which trust is expected and causes harm or discomfort to an older person (Keller et al., 2019;Pillemer et al., 2016). The prevalence of elder abuse was reported to be 16% in a review of 52 studies from 28 countries (Yon et al., 2017). Moreover, in a systematic review, the overall prevalence of elder abuse among Iranian older people was 45.7%. In these studies, the prevalence of psychological or emotional abuse was higher than other types of elder abuse (44.5%), followed by neglect (41.0%), financial harassment (27.4%) and physical abuse (15.4%) (Arab-Zozani et al., 2018). Emotional abuse is an act that causes pain or emotional trauma to older people. This can include insulting or threatening a person, acts of humiliation or disrespect and controlling behaviours, including restricting or isolating an older person (Council of Attorneys, 2019).Elderly abuse has many negative physical and mental health consequences for older people (Burnes et al., 2019;Dong, 2015;Yunus et al., 2017), and can lead to depression, chronic anxiety, stress, sleep disorders and lower life satisfaction among the older