Exploring the Correlates to Depression in Elder Abuse Victims: Abusive Experience or Individual Characteristics?

First Published September 20, 2017 Research Article Find in PubMed

Authors

12
 
National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisboa, Portugal
 
University of Porto, Portugal
by this author
, 13
 
National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisboa, Portugal
 
NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
by this author
, 1
 
National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisboa, Portugal
by this author
,
3
 
NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
by this author
, 24
 
University of Porto, Portugal
 
University of Aveiro, Portugal
by this author
...
First Published Online: September 20, 2017

Depression and depressive symptoms have been studied both as risk factors and consequences of elder abuse, even though the most common cross-sectional design of the studies does not allow inferring cause or consequence relationships. This study estimates the proportion of older adults who screened positive for depressive symptoms among those self-reporting elder abuse and examines whether individual characteristics and/or abusive experience aspects are associated with self-reported depressive symptoms. Participants were 510 older adults self-reporting experiences of abuse in family setting enrolled in the cross-sectional victims’ survey of the Aging and Violence Study. Depressive symptoms were assessed through the abbreviated version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-5). Poisson regression was used to determine the prevalence ratio (PR) of screening depressive symptoms according to individual and abusive experience covariates: sex, age group, cohabitation, perceived social support, chronic diseases, functional status, violence type, perpetrator, and number of conducts. Women (PR = 1.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.04, 1.35]) individuals perceiving low social support level (PR = 1.36, 95% CI = [1.16, 1.60]) and with long-term illness (PR = 1.17, 95% CI = [1.02, 1.33]) were found to be associated with increased risk for screening depressive symptoms. In regard to abusive experience, only the number of abusive conducts increased the PR (PR = 1.07, 95% CI = [1.05, 1.09]). Routine screening for elder abuse should include psychological well-being assessment. Interventions toward risk alleviation for both mental health problems and elder abuse should target women perceiving low social support level and with long-term illness.

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