Medical students' recognition of elder abuse

Abstract

Medical students are good at recognising not abusive care, but not as successful at recognising elder abuse. Working as a professional carer was associated with better recognition of abuse, while personal contact with a person with dementia and recalling formal education about abuse were not.

Recognition of elder abuse by Italian nurses and nursing students: evaluation by the Caregiving Scenario Questionnaire

“…According to Thompson-McCormick et al [12], the response options for each CSQ response were dichotomized into abusive, which was classified as the ''abusive'' option on the Likert Scale, and not abusive, covering all other options. Univariate analyses were conducted to evaluate differences between the nurses' and students' performances in detecting abuse and neglect.…”

“…Using the Caregiving Scenario Questionnaire (CSQ), measuring recognition of elder abuse according to the UK Department of Health's definition [10], Selwood et al [11] showed that professionals and carers had significantly different views from each other regarding which actions constitute elder abuse. The same instrument was adopted to evaluate a group of fourth-year medical students from two different UK Universities with similar experience and training, revealing that non-abusive items were correctly identified, while abusive items were less successfully identified, especially for neglect [12]. Finally, a recent study using the CSQ in the Australian context showed that between one-quarter and two-fifths of health professionals did not identify abusive strategies [13].…”

“…According to Thompson-McCormick et al [12], socio-demographic data and information about professional, personal experience and education were also collected. In addition, comparisons with previous studies using the same instrument were performed.…”

Health professionals' and students' perceptions of elder abuse

“…Two recent UK studies investigated recognition of elder abuse by medical students [11] and staff working in older people's mental health services [12] using the Caregiving Scenario Questionnaire (CSQ). The CSQ is a fictional vignette of a son caring for his mother who has dementia [12].…”

“…Each of the 13 strategies was categorised as 'abusive', 'potentially abusive' or 'not abusive' according to UK No Secrets Guidelines [6] and expert opinion [12]. Thompson-McCormick et al found that medical students are less likely to identify strategies defined as abusive than health care professionals [11]. In a third CSQ study, only a minority of home care workers in Romania identified strategies categorised as abusive and those with more experience identified fewer strategies [13].…”