Detection and Management of Elder Abuse: Nurse Practitioner Self-Perceptions of Barriers and Strategies

Elder abuse is a serious and growing phenomenon, yet it is one of the most under-diagnosed and under-reported problems in the United States. Nurse Practitioners are uniquely positioned to identify, diagnose, and report elder abuse. Quantitative methodology underpinned by the theoretical framework of Carper's Patterns of Knowing was utilized to assess the self-perception of nurse practitioners related to the barriers of detection and strategies for management of elder abuse. Two hundred potential participants were randomly selected from the AANP membership database yielding a 54.5% response rate (n=88). Nurse practitioners identified the following barriers as fairly or very important: resistance to intervention, denial of abuse, fear of reprisal by the abuser towards the elder, lack of professional protocol related to responding and assessing elder abuse, lack of knowledge about where to call for help, lack of professional protocol, lack of guidelines about confidentiality, difficulty in determining what constitutes elder abuse, and lack of knowledge about prevalence. Strategies perceived to be helpful included: one agency to call, list of resources, directory, resource package for practice, professional guidelines, continuing education and elder abuse education in practice, central library resource, and an elder abuse newsletter. The majority of responding nurse practitioners (57.9%) reported that they saw suspected cases of elder abuse on a monthly or weekly basis. When asked about educational preparedness 62.5% did not feel that their undergraduate nursing program adequately prepared them to detect and manage elder abuse and 42.1% of respondents did not feel that their nurse practitioner program adequately prepared them. The results of this study provide nursing knowledge about the self-perceptions of nurse practitioners related to elder abuse and new information that can be utilized to further nursing research.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Year dc:date.available

2006

Author dc:creator

• Pearsall, Catherine

Contributors dc:contributor

• L. Kathleen Sekula
• Ann Wolbert Burgess
• John C. Kern
• Kathleen Brown

• elder abuse forensic markers
• elder violence

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1031

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2047