Elder abuse is a global phenomenon that causes long-term physical and psychological effects on the victim. Although there are no exact prevalence rates, it is estimated that a percentage greater than 20% of the elderly may be victims of emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse, neglect and violation of their human rights.
Despite high prevalence rates, elder abuse is known to be underreported: according to the World Health Organisation, around 80% of elder abuse cases are likely to go undetected.
The reasons for under-reporting are many and include fear of consequences, the victim’s inability to recognise that they have been abused, and health and social care professionals not being adequately trained to recognise abuse and support older victims domestic violence.
The use of abuse detection tools helps professionals to identify and assess elder abuse and neglect, but is still rarely implemented across the European Union.
The Nursing Department of CUT participates together with five other partners from EU countries in the European programme @Erasmus+ SAVE – SCREENING OF ABUSE VICTIMS AMONG ELDERLY (https://www.projectsave.eu/), which aims to adopt abuse detection tools of the elderly in health care and social care settings, providing training and support to professionals for their effective implementation.
On January 20, 2023, the final event of the SAVE project was organised in Limassol where health and social care professionals from all over Cyprus were invited to participate and learn about the opportunities offered by the project to develop new knowledge, skills and attitudes to identify and addressing elder abuse.
In addition, the participants heard the views of some of the health professionals who took part in the pilot application of the detection tool implemented in Cyprus (https://www.projectsave.eu/greek/) and were informed about the last deliverable of the SAVE project which is the creating an online training programme for health and social care professionals as well as students interested in learning more about detecting elder abuse.
This programme is available in Greek and can be found on the project website: https://www.projectsave.eu/training/login/index.php
Source: Cyprus University of Technology I News (https://bit.ly/3XxpmGe)