NCJ Number
178597
Date Published
1996
Length
55 pages
Annotation
National estimates of the extent of abuse of the elderly during fiscal years 1993 and 1994 were developed using data on elder abuse reports collected from state adult protective service agencies and state units on aging in the fall of 1994.
Abstract
Fifty-five agencies representing all 54 jurisdictions responded to the survey. In 1994, there were 241,000 reports of domestic elder abuse took place nationwide--an increase of 106 percent since a 1986 survey on the same topic. The number of reports of elder abuse increased steadily from fiscal year 1986 to fiscal year 1994. The National Center on Elder Abuse estimates that 820,000 elderly persons experienced domestic elder abuse in fiscal year 1994. This number excludes more than 1 million self-neglecting elders. A total of 21.6 percent of the reports of domestic elder abuse in 1994 came from physicians and other health care professionals; another 9.4 percent came from the staff of agencies providing services to elderly persons. Sixty-one percent of all reports were substantiated; 32 percent of the substantiated reports were self-neglect cases. Neglect was the most common form of elder maltreatment in domestic settings for both fiscal year 1993 and fiscal year 1994. Adult children accounted for 33.3 percent of the abusers in fiscal year 1993 and 35 percent in fiscal 1994. Just over half the abusers were females. The median age of victims was 76.5 years in fiscal year 1994. It was impossible to determine from the data whether the increased reports resulted from an increase in the incidence of elder abuse or from an increase in reporting of cases that were always in existence. Nevertheless, findings suggested that adult protective service systems will be responding to nearly 500,000 report of domestic elder abuse in the year 2000. Figures, tables, and footnotes