Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

With the increase in aging populations, community health nurses (CHN) are increasingly encountering situations of elder abuse. Their ability to advocate for systemic solutions is often hindered by the unfamiliar legal, financial, and institutional contexts. This study provides a scoping review of thirty-two qualitative studies that were published between 2012 and 2017 and conducted in consultation with community and professional experts to develop an algorithm of flow of actions for addressing identified or suspicious cases of elder abuse in the metropolitan city of Toronto, Canada. The algorithm helped authors make the following observations: a lack of appropriate community resources; a disconnect between the healthcare and other social services; a lack of up-to-date sources of guidance for community health nurses dealing with cases of elder abuse; the communication breakdown between hospital and community health settings; poor collaboration between public guardianship and law enforcement; a lack of clear policy for financial institutions to share information with external organizations in suspected cases of financial abuse; and a lack of training for police, healthcare professionals and community workers to assess and report suspected abuse. Community health nurses’ efforts to intervene in cases of elder abuse in a timely and effective manner could be enhanced by addressing these systemic and policy level issues. Further research using an in-depth algorithm may help uncover solutions to these intertwined issues.