Barriers to detecting and reporting the abuse of older adults in ED

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Perspectives of London Emergency Department Nurses on barriers to detecting and reporting the abuse of older adults in the Emergency Department setting.

• IRAS ID

  260410

• Contact name

  Leanne Aitken

• Contact email

  leanne.aitken.1@city.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  City, University of London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 5 months, 8 days

• Research summary

  Over the past few decades there has been a focus by medical and healthcare professionals on child abuse and domestic violence, with relatively little attention to the subject of elder abuse (Rodriguez, Wallace, Woolf and Mangione, 2006). This is still evident now by the differences in quantity of education, funding, size of safeguarding teams between adult and child services. If a nurse or a doctor misses a safeguarding referral for a child within the Emergency Department they are likely to be contacted by their local safeguarding team; in the author’s experience this is not the same for a missed referral for an older adult.

  In order to correct this disparity, it is imperative that nursing staff within the Emergency Department are confident and competent in identifying the abuse of older adults, that they do not perceive there to be any barriers to doing so and that they know how to speak out if they have concerns. The Emergency Department setting is “an ideal setting to detect elder abuse as visits are often unplanned and there is opportunity for the patient to be assessed by multiple health care professionals both of which make it more difficult to hide evidence of abuse.” Caines and Ward (2017).

  This is a study of emergency nurses, working in Charing Cross Emergency Department, to establish whether there are barriers to the detection and reporting of the abuse of older adults in the ED.
  10 Emergency Nurses (bands 5,6,7,8a) to be interviewed as part of a 10 question semi structured interview over a period of a month.
  Rationale -
  • To assess Emergency Department nursing knowledge with regards to the identification of the abuse of older adults
  • To establish and understand if there are any barriers in the Emergency Department that prevents nurses from identifying the abuse of older adults
  • To establish and understand if there are any barriers in the Emergency Department that prevents nurses from reporting the abuse of older adults

• REC name

  N/A

• REC reference

  N/A