Identification of Elder Abuse Through Out-of-Hospital Emergency Care Providers

Background and purpose: Elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation are under-detected and under-reported. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe out-of-hospital emergency care providers' experiences of identifying elder abuse. Methods: Individual theme interviews were conducted with nine prehospital emergency care providers and three community paramedics in spring 2019. The transcribed data were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results: Although the short duration of care contacts made the identification of elder abuse challenging, the emergency care providers detected indicators of physical, psychological and social abuse, unethical action, material exploitation, and self-neglect/self-abuse. The professionals based their observations on patient and family interviews, on clues in the home environment, on caregiving quality combined with the patient's medical history, and on physical signs, which were the easiest to identify. Implications for Practice: The identification of elder abuse may be improved by multiprofessional collaboration, by increased attention given to risk groups and common indicators of abuse, and by adoption or creation of screening tools to assist detection and reporting. Training on the detection of elder abuse should be included in nursing and social work curricula and in the continuing professional development of emergency care providers.