title: Ethical and psychosocial issues raised by the practice in cases of mistreatment of older adults.
abstract: Intervention regarding older adult mistreatment raises many questions for practitioners. They have to interact with the victim, the abuser, and, in many cases, with both of them at the same time. In such cases, five themes emerge from the literature review on psycho-social and ethical issues in practice: practitioners' pre-construction and axiological frameworks, victims' capacity, confidentiality versus collaboration between practitioners or between agencies, social and family responsibilities and the balance between competing values in practice. Practitioners are well placed to offer a critical reflection on their practice and on ways of improving it. The goal of our qualitative study is to identify issues and ethical dilemmas in elderly mistreatment situations as represented in the discourses of practitioners in reference to interventions in their psychosocial practice. Sixteen practitioners from the public and community (non-profit organization) sectors were interviewed using a practice history approach. This paper presents the main ethical and psychosocial issues raised by practitioners and some ideas to improve the practice. It is motivated by the crucial question haunting the practitioners' minds: "How far should we go?"
authors.affiliation: University of Sherbrooke, Research Centre on Aging, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beaulieu
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leclerc
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019090:Case Management / Q000941:ethics*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004552:Elder Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D015279:Organizational Culture; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012947:Social Work / Q000941:ethics*