[Prevalence of elder abuse in Spanish dwelling in community].

BACKGROUND AND

OBJECTIVE

Although elder abuse is not a new phenomenon, it remains hidden. There have been carried out various preliminary studies about the prevalence of elder abuse in different countries. The aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence of suspicion of elder abuse in old persons without cognitive impairment, dwelling in community, who were attended in Primary Health Care or Social Services Centres.

PATIENTS AND METHOD: We carried out a transverse study in which 340 elders participated.

RESULTS

We found a 12.1% prevalence of suspicion of elder abuse. Psychological abuse suspicion was the most frequent type and it was very common the simultaneous presence of different types of abuse (psychological and physical and sexual). The suspicion of elder abuse was more frequent in women and spouses were responsible in a high great frequency.

CONCLUSIONS

The information obtained allows advancing in the knowledge of elder abuse in Spain, where the research about this issue is poor. However, the prevalence found neither has to be considered as a social alarm nor as a social slackness.