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ABSTRACT
This study aimed to develop and validate a brief tool for physician use to improve suspicion about the presence or absence of elder abuse. A literature review on elder abuse, obstacles to its identification, limitations of detection tools, and characteristics of screeners employed by physicians were used to generate elder abuse detection questions for critique by 31 doctors, nurses, and social workers in focus groups. Six resulting questions became the Elder Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI) administered by 104 family doctors to 953 cognitively intact seniors in ambulatory-care settings. Findings were compared to a recognized, detailed elder abuse Social Work Evaluation (SWE) later administered to participants by social workers blinded to the results of the EASI. The EASI had an estimated sensitivity and specificity of 0.47 and 0.75, usually took less than 2 minutes to ask, and 97.2% of doctors felt it would have some or big practice impact. This research is a first phase in the development and validation of a user-friendly tool that might sensitize physicians to elder abuse and promote referrals of possible victims for in-depth assessment by specialized professionals.
This study was funded by a grant (MOP-57847) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Appreciation is expressed to Ms. Silvia Straka and Dr. Elizabeth Podnieks for help in the preparation of the grant submission and on theoretical constructs for elder abuse. The cooperation and participation of the physicians and staff of St. Mary's Hospital Centre, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, and the CLSC René Cassin were essential to the operationalization of this project. The investigators received no external financial support for their activities on this project.