Gerontology & Geriatric Research

Abstract

Abuse of Older Adults Residing in the Community of Nepal

Hom Nath Chalise and Mandira Basnet

Introduction: With the increasing global population concern on older person’s abuse is also increasing. There is dearth of research on the elder abuse of older persons in Nepal and very little is known about this.

Objective: Objective of this paper is to explore the situation of abuse of older persons in community living older adults of Nepal.

Methodology: This is a cross-sectional community based study carried out in eastern part of Nepal. Data was collected through face to face interview using structured questionnaire. Total number of participants were 158, sixty years and above. Mean age of the respondent was 72.1 years with age ranged 62-93 years. Majority of the participants were male (72.8%), married (50%), having some health problems (58.2%) and have some saving for future (61%).

Findings: This study found 95% older persons have heard about abuse of older persons and prevalence of abuse was 47.4% in the last six month. Most common older person's abuse was neglect (35.4%), followed by showing disrespect (34.8%), verbal abuse (25.3%), economic abuse (8.1%) physical abuse (5.7%) and emotional abuse (5.1%). This study further found older men were more suffering from abuse compared to women, literate have higher abuse and elderly suffering from disease have higher elder abuse.

Conclusion: Abuse of older adults is quite high in Nepal compared to other society. Further in depth study to explore the situation of abuse and associated factors that may prove helpful in development of effective interventions to prevent and manage abuse among the older persons is urgent.