Elder abuse: do general practitioners know or care?
A pilot survey in Tower Hamlets, London, indicated that many general practitioners (GPs) might not be recognizing abuse of elderly patients through lack of training. The survey was replicated on a large scale in Birmingham, to allow further analysis. 561 Birmingham GPs were mailed questionnaires and responses from 291 were analysed, providing data from 95% of the practices. The findings were similar to those in Tower Hamlets: just under half had diagnosed elder abuse in the previous year. Regression analysis of the combined data-sets (n = 363) indicated that the strongest factor predicting GP diagnosis of abuse was knowledge of 5 or more risk situations (odds ratio 6.77, 95% confidence interval 4.19, 10.93). The findings of these surveys suggest that research-based education and training would help GPs to become better at identifying and managing elder abuse.
McCreadie
C
C
Age Concern Institute of Gerontology, King's College London, UK. claudine.mccreadie@kcl.ac.uk
Bennett
G
G
Gilthorpe
M S
MS
Houghton
G
G
Tinker
A
A
D000368:Aged; D015984:Causality; D004552:Elder Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004739:England; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012307:Risk Factors