Citation

Acierno RE. J. Elder Abuse Negl. 2017; 29(2-3): 186-187.

Affiliation

College of Nursing, Medical University of South Carolina , Charleston , South Carolina , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/08946566.2017.1310074

PMID

28328307

Abstract

Wong and Waite present a longitudinal study of elder abuse and its effects. However, they contend that their data do not support the protective effects of social support, a finding in contrast with virtually all existing research on the topic. Closer inspection of their variables indicates that they misclassify "elder abuse" insofar as their results are actually in terms of only one type of elder abuse, psychological abuse, ignoring physical and sexual abuse, and they define "elder abuse" using only one question: "Is there anyone who insults you or puts you down?" Finally, they measure social support with the single item "if they generally feel they can open up to, and rely on, these significant others." It is not, therefore, surprising that they observed that social support was not protective considering health outcomes.

Language: en

Keywords

Commentary; elder abuse; health outcomes; psychological outcomes; social support