engleski

Raising community awareness for elderly abuse in Croatia

The purpose of this paper is to provide a general overview of current knowledge about elderly abuse in Croatia. The analysis covers two field of research: (1) prevalence and correlates of elderly abuse and (2) attitudes toward elderly abuse. The research on prevalence of elderly abuse has been carried out on the convenient sample of 303 elderly men and women. On average, in the last year they have experienced some forms of psychological violence (24.1%), economic violence (6.4%), physical violence (4.4%) and sexual violence (2.1%) in the family. Most often, abusers are husbands (30.15%), sons (16.64%) and daughters (14.01%), wives (9.21%), grandsons (8.60%) and granddaughters (5.40%). Further analyses show that 44% of women and 35% of men have experienced at least some form of violence in the partner relationship. Victims of partner abuse and abuse by other family members have poorer mental and physical health. Results indicate alcohol as one of the factors of victimization, unrelated to sex of the perpetrator. The research of attitudes toward elderly abuse was carried out on the sample of 334 social welfare professionals and students. Generally, they have a sensitive attitude toward elderly abuse. Nevertheless, data indicate that further education regarding different forms of elderly abuse and the negative effect of ageism on sensitivity toward elderly abuse should be planned.

elderly abuse; prevalence; attitudes; community

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