Aging & Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the concept of adult-child to older parent coercive control by identifying its defining attributes and exploring the circumstances under which the phenomena manifests in the lives of older adults. A scoping review methodology was conducted to guide the literature review while a concept analysis methodology guided data extraction and analysis. The review was conducted in accordance with the scoping review methodology of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBL). Literature search (conducted in PubMed, PsycInfo, CINAHL, ASSIA, EMBASE and Web of Science). Evidence on adult-child to older-parent coercive control is significantly under-developed with the concept rarely mentioned in the extracted research literature. Twenty-two documents met inclusion criteria. Findings suggest four defining attributes of the concept. Isolation (1) imposed isolation (2) history of family violence (3) financial and psychological dependency (adult-child and older-parent) (4) fear, intimidation and threat of harm. Model and contrary cases are presented to illustrate the findings. Existing bodies of literature on adult-child to older-parent coercive control fail to describe the concept. Due to under-researched nature of this phenomena the concept analysis largely draws on literature regarding psychological elder abuse and domestic violence to contextualise the issue. The knowledge generated from this systematic concept analysis, along with the tacit knowledge of the author as a practitioner/ researcher was synthesised using a co-constructed reflexive thematic analysis. A tentative operational definition and a conceptual model are proposed that may provide a starting point for future research.