|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Features for Senior Citizens
Even After Age 65 Women Are Victims of Partner
Violence, Study Finds
 About 25% experience physical, sexual,
psychological violence
March 5, 2007 - About one in four women older than
65 has been the victim of physical, sexual or psychological violence at
the hands of a spouse or other intimate partner, according to a study
done in two northwestern states. About 3.5 percent of the women surveyed had
suffered violence in the past five years, and 2.2 percent in the past
year.
| |
Related Stories |
|
| |
Senior Citizens Are Much More 'Trusting' Than
Younger Americans
May have come of age when social mores, events
provided for more social trust
March 1, 2007 - Senior citizens are more trusting
than younger people, says a new poll that, like most others, finds older
people at one end or the other in every comparison of age groups. Social
trust is a belief in the honesty, integrity and reliability of others -
a "faith in people." It's a simple enough concept to describe. But it's
never been easy to figure out who trusts, or why, according to this new
Pew Social Trends Survey.
Read more...
Elderly Often Unrecognized Victims of Sexual Abuse
By Kathleen Dugan
Nov. 9, 2004 - The term elder abuse typically
brings to mind physical or emotional abuse, but older people are also
the victims of sexual abuse. Non-consensual sexual contact with an older
person is elder sexual abuse. It can mean using coercion such as
threats, force, deceptions or contact with elders who are unable to
grant consent.
More...
Read more
Features for Senior Citizens |
|
Intimate partner violence is not a problem only
for younger women, said Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and
associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio
State University.
The study appears in the February 2007 issue of The
Gerontologist. It involved telephone interviews with 370 women aged 65
years and older who belonged to a health care system in western
Washington state and northern Idaho.
Bonomi said this is one of only a handful of
studies to focus solely on the depth and breadth of violence perpetrated
by intimate partners against older women.
The results showed that 26.5 percent of the women
surveyed reported violence by an intimate partner over their lifetimes.
Of those who reported abuse, most were the victims of multiple types.
It was very rare that women experienced only one
type of violence, Bonomi said. Over half experienced two or more types
of violence. Thats troubling.
About 18 percent reported sexual or physical abuse
and 22 percent were the victims of psychological abuse, including being
threatened, called derogatory names or having their behavior controlled
by their partner.
The psychological abuse experienced by women in
this study was not minor, Bonomi said. About 70 percent of women who
experienced verbal threats by an intimate partner said these threats
were severe. Additionally, women who reported controlling behavior had
experienced this abuse for an average of 10 years.
In spite of the breadth and depth of violence in
this group of women, only 3 percent said they had been asked by a health
care provider about physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner
since age 18.
Not enough doctors and other health care
professionals are screening women for intimate partner abuse, Bonomi
said.
The health care setting is a crucial focus for
victims, because it provides a safe, confidential place for ongoing
interactions between abused women and their health care providers.
While the prevalence of violence found in this
study is startling enough, Bonomi said it is probably an underestimate
of how much it actually occurred.
One reason is that women were asked to recall abuse
over a lifetime. There may have been a tendency for women to downplay
violence experienced early in life.
In addition, women who participated in the study
were consistently insured and highly educated. Violence rates tend to be
higher in women without consistent insurance and women with less formal
education.
Intimate partner violence takes not only a personal
toll, but a financial one as well, according to Bonomi. In an earlier
study by Bonomi and her colleagues, findings showed the health care
costs for abused women were 19 percent higher than for non-abused women.
We found that health care costs for abused women
were still higher even five years after the abuse stopped, Bonomi said.
This underscores the need to pay attention to the issue of intimate
partner violence in health care settings.
Bonomi conducted the most recent study with Melissa
Anderson, Robert Reid, David Carrell, Paul Fishman and Robert Thompson,
all with the Center for Health Studies at the Group Health Cooperative
in Seattle; and with Frederick Rivara of the Harborview Injury
Prevention and Research Center, and the University of Washington in
Seattle.
The Group Health Cooperative was the health care
system whose members were surveyed for the study.
The study was supported by the federal Agency for
Health Research and Quality.
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
