Responding to Elder Abuse in GERiAtric Care - Dementia

Abuse of older people is common and people with dementia are especially susceptible to abuse. Older people may be subjected to physical, psychological, sexual, financial abuse or neglect by relatives as well as health and social care professionals or other people in a relationship involving an expectation of trust. Reporting experiences of abuse is associated with poor health outcomes. Still, abusive experiences are often unknown to professionals. This study protocol describes the development and procedure to test the validity of two new screening instruments (REAGERA-S20 and REAGERA-N) to detect abuse of people with dementia. The aims of the study are: 1. To assess the validity of two new self-administered screening tools to detect abusive experiences among people with dementia: the REAGERA-S20 directed at people with dementia and the REAGERA-N directed at the next of kin. 2. To translate and validate a Swedish version of the Risk of Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Instrument (REAMI) that can be used by professional caregivers to estimate risk of maltreatment and abuse of people with dementia. 3. To explore experiences of abuse among people with dementia and their next of kin. Method People with mild to moderate dementia (n=80) and their next of kin (n=80) are recruited at health and social care facilities providing care to people with dementia. In cases of severe dementia or when the person with dementia is excluded for other reasons, only next of kin is included. The following steps are used in the data collection 1. Participants fill out the REAGERA-S20 or REAGERA-N individually. 2. Participants are interviewed individually by two different researchers about their abusive experiences. If a participant talks about abusive experiences, a qualitative in-depth interview about those experiences is conducted. 3. A preliminary classification of the participants as abused or not abused, based only on information provided in the individual interview is made. 4. Informa