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Prevalence of elder abuse and its related factors in Iran: A community-based study

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Abstract

Elder abuse is a major problem that has physical, sexual, psychological, financial, and negligence dimensions. This can lead to physical ailments such as fractures and mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and related factors of elder abuse in Shahroud county, northeast of Iran. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 360 Iranian older people referred to Shahroud health centers by using cluster sampling method with inclusion criteria of; age over 60 years and mental and cognitive health and exclusion criteria of severe physical disease and disrupting the process of completing the questionnaire. Elder abuse was measured using a Vulnerability to Abuse Screening Scale (VASS) with a score higher than 2 and the relationship between age, gender, education, housing status, number of children, employment status, marital status, insurance status, and living arrangement with elder abuse was examined in a logistic regression model. The prevalence of elder abuse was 38.6%. Living with spouse and children (OR = 0.20) and living with spouse (OR = 0.43) were associated with lower risk of elder abuse compared with living alone in the regression model. A significant number of Iranian older people are exposed to abuse and health care systems need to take steps to reduce this social problem. It is suggested that the older adults live at least in marriage status as much as possible and that a cultural context to deal with the phenomenon be adopted through education and planning.

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Data Availability

If interested in obtaining the data from this study please contact ebrahimi@shmu.ac.ir

Code Availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgments

This study has been extracted from the master’s thesis in nursing which was conducted at Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. This research has been approved by this university with the code 95168. The researchers hereby express their appreciation to all the elderly participants in the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Student Research Committee, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran

    Saeideh Motahedi

  2. School of Nursing & Midwifery, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran

    Mahboobeh Khajeh

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Center for Health Related Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran

    Ahmad Khosravi

  4. Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Seyedmohammad Mirhosseini

  5. Department of Psychiatric Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Seyedmohammad Mirhosseini

  6. Center for Health Related Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, 7th Square, 3614773955, Shahroud, Iran

    Hossein Ebrahimi

Authors
  1. Saeideh Motahedi
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  2. Mahboobeh Khajeh
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  3. Ahmad Khosravi
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  4. Seyedmohammad Mirhosseini
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  5. Hossein Ebrahimi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Ahmad Khosravi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Saeideh Motahedi and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hossein Ebrahimi.

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Ethics Approval

The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shahroud University of Medical Sciences (Ethical approval code: IR.SHMU.REC. 1397.079).

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Motahedi, S., Khajeh, M., Khosravi, A. et al. Prevalence of elder abuse and its related factors in Iran: A community-based study. Curr Psychol 42, 17960–17967 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03024-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03024-y

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