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Elder Abuse With Mental Disabilities
Ill-treatment or violence is a behavior aimed at causing harm, insulting, or humiliating a person. This is any act or omission that harms an older person or puts their health and well-being at risk. Common types of elder abuse include physical or psychological abuse, neglect, and financial abuse. Each type of violence can be intentional or unintentional. Polyvictimization (the presence of several forms of violence at once) is common. Older children are often the perpetrators, but they can also be other family members and legal or non-legal guardians. Abuse of adults with mental disorders refers not only to various forms of overt and covert physical and mental violence against them but also manifestations of indifference, neglect, ignorance, indifference, or hostility towards them. For a potential victim of violence against the elderly, the risk factors for abuse are poor health (chronic somatic diseases, functional and cognitive disorders) and social isolation.
Main Findings of the Research
The main findings of the study consist of a massive layer of researched information, including the stories of peoples lives. Based on these data, the authors of the article come to the conclusion that almost all people suffering from mental disorders have ever been subjected to violence either by the staff of the centers in which they are kept or earlier by other people. It also includes sexual or gender-based violence. In addition, it was found that many of the people interviewed were subjected to discrimination and abuse, which negatively affected their mental health. However, most patients could use positive coping strategies to cope with the pressure and find help. The researchers found out that the level of vulnerability and, accordingly, risks are determined by the persons position, social ties, and diagnosis. A reduction in preventive support can negatively affect a persons well-being and increase the risk of facing violence from family or friends. Neglect on the part of staff may be perceived as neglect or purposeful bullying. This applies primarily to personnel who pretend not to notice anything that is part of their duties. Some people may feel that it is they who are the problem and that they are being treated so harshly. The few who report abusive acts find that services are partial, and responses are given inappropriately. This may cause a loss of trust in such help services, and people will stop going there. Collective responsibility and exchange of experience should be established between institutions and doctors.
Research Approach
The main approaches to studying the problem were the study of literature and interviewing people who had experience abuse. The primary basis of the study, respectively, was that it helped the researchers fully familiarize themselves with the problem of negligent and cruel treatment of people with mental disabilities.
Implications of the Approach
The implications of the approach used were a significant amount of material, with the help of which a more detailed study of the problem became possible. In addition, the study results are the tuition of why certain people may show violence towards people with mental disabilities. It can be employees of specialized institutions and others like family or acquaintances. In the first case, it can be said that no one wants to take responsibility for another person, which is why the causes of neglect occur.
Practical Use of Research
In practice, the results of this study can be used to take preventive measures. They will help to avoid cases of blatant violation of their duties by medical workers, and other people will begin to treat people with mental problems with understanding. In addition, the study will help eliminate future and current violations by implementing a more stringent selection of personnel in the relevant services and monitoring their work. The article claims, Adult safeguarding leads and police respondents said that under-reporting led to a lack of data on the victimization of people with mental health problems (National Institute for Health Research & School for Social Care Research, 2009). This fact is a significant danger because if people do not report such violations, this will further neglect the problem and the suffering of even more people.
Impact of Stigma on Healthcare
Stigmatization of the mentally ill is the process of separating an individual from a society based on having a psychiatric diagnosis, followed by his perception by others through the prism of stereotypical ideas about the mentally ill and emotional and behavioral responses. The first form of stigma is social: with it, others put a psychiatric label on a person and begin to prejudice him. The second type is self-stigmatization. This is a persons reaction to their mental illness and the status of the mentally ill in society. Self-stigmatization can affect feelings of shame and lead to poor treatment outcomes. In addition to everything else, it should be added that The stress of stigmatization, from direct experience, but also stigma suspicion and anticipation, can elicit physiological, psychological and behavioral responses, which harm health over time (Talumaa, Brown, Batterham and Kalea, 2022). Stigma attitudes towards people with mental health problems are common and continue to be actively strengthened in society. Stigma can also be a barrier to recovery from mental illness, as it is a barrier to seeking help. On the part of society, patients with psychiatric health are subjected to rejection, social isolation, and ostracism, that is, they experience the pressure of external stigma.
Main Findings of the Research
The main findings of this paper include that gender does not matter in stigma since the number of people exposed to it is approximately the same, both men and women. Internalized stigma and experienced stigma were correlated, indicating that participants who believed they had experienced more stigma also internalized stigma more. Second, internalized and experienced stigma were associated with more significant expected stigma. Experienced stigma had a stronger association with expected stigma than internalized stigma, suggesting that participants anticipation of stigma may be more influenced by their perception of past experiences of stigma than their internalization of stigma. Third, internal stigma was also associated with access to health care and quality of life. Participants living with chronic conditions who internalized experienced and anticipated stigma in health care settings were less likely to seek health care and, in turn, had a lower quality of life. Thus, it can be concluded that stigma has a more significant impact than physical illness.
Research Approach
To conduct the study, the authors used the approaches of interviewing, studying the sample, and collecting and analyzing data. These approaches made it possible to obtain reliable results among all categories, including different genders, nationalities, and skin tones.
Implications of the Approach
An implication of the approach to investigating this problem within the framework of this study is that the researchers found that internalized stigma is directly related to the expected stigma. The researchers state that the primary purpose of the paper was to find out how internalized, experienced, and anticipated stigma have an impact upon healthcare access and quality of life (Earnshaw and Quinn, 2011). The stigma experienced was also indirectly related to the quality of life and access to timely medical care.
Practical Use of Research
This study will help better understand what should be treated in patients with internalized stigma. It can be applied to improve the work of doctors in this area. The paper also emphasizes the importance of targeted treatment of internalized stigma in people with chronic whitening. It highlights the fact that such people are more likely than others to experience stereotyped self-address, even from medical professionals. In this regard, this study will also be helpful in stopping such behavior.
Abuse in Care Homes
In older adults, maltreatment is defined as a single or repeated act or omission that takes place within a relationship of trust and causes physical or psychological harm to older adults. This type of violence constitutes a contravention of human rights and can take the form of physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional violence, financial and material abuses, leaving without help, neglect of needs, or humiliation and disrespect. In addition, Cooper et al. (2018) mention that ignorance of the caregiver about the care recipient can also be considered abusive behavior. In such cases, communication between staff and patients should be improved. Elder abuse can lead to serious physical, mental, financial, and social consequences, including physical injury, premature death, and depression.
Older people are susceptible to the consequences of abuse and take longer to recover from it. Individual characteristics that increase the risk of abuse include functional dependency, poor physical health, psychiatric disorders, and low income. Individual-level characteristics that increase the likelihood of gesturing include mental illness, drug addiction, and the perpetrators financial dependence on the victim. At the interpersonal level, the nature of the relationship and marital status may lead to an increased risk of abuse.
Main Findings of the Research
The main findings of this paper are the autopsies of many cases of abuse in care homes. Such cases were seldom reported because the residents of such institutions feared that it would have no effect other than even more brutal treatment from the staff. Moreover, external authorities often ignored such appeals and did not help the older adults. It was found that over time care homes had developed some abusive behavior among staff. Despite massive training and recommendations on best practices, policies, and procedures available to nursing homes for decades, these behaviors persist to this day. It was also established that even special measures were taken to prevent the handling of complaints to further conceal the facts of violations by employees of their duties. The results reveal only one facet of the organizational culture that may have developed in many care homes. Essential facts were also uncovered that may prevent the reporting of such violence to competent authorities. In addition, it was found that many care home employees are afraid to testify to acts of aggression by their colleagues, fearing being ostracized or losing their jobs. Most importantly, due to the continued failure of the government agencies responsible for overseeing how the nursing home sector treats some of the most vulnerable people in society to ensure that all abuse is reported, tacit permission is given for poor care and abuse to continue.
Research Approach
The primary approach to studying current situations is collecting and analyzing data from care homes. The researchers used a questionnaire that survey participants filled out manually to collect such data. The survey also involved the staff of the same care homes where the interviewed patients came from. To mitigate the potential consequences of incorrect responses, the questionnaire was designed so that newly appointed medical personnel would complete it anonymously immediately preceding their active service or at the time of induction with a new employer. It was considered that many of these newly hired caregivers were likely to have worked as caregivers in their previous positions, and the questionnaire required answers about their experience in their previous nursing homes. This method of obtaining information from potential respondents was primarily intended to overcome any fear of personal repercussions that might otherwise be present among caregivers.
Implications of the Approach
Although the article was based on the responses of a relatively small number of respondents, it should be assumed that many such cases of violence by medical personnel remained undisclosed. This paves the way for further research to prevent such treatment of people in care homes. Such treatment in care homes is hazardous for older adults who cannot care for themselves.
Practical Use of Research
The purpose of this work is primarily to promote the adoption of preventive measures that can help prevent violent behavior in care homes. As the author writes, the purpose of this study is to present additional contemporary evidence that occurrences of abuse are not always reported both within and external to every care home (Moore, 2020). These measures can be implemented by exposing the facts of concealing ill-treatment with the publication of the results and drawing the attention of the competent authorities.
Reference List
Cooper, C. et al. (2018) Do care homes deliver person-centred care? A cross-sectional survey of staff-reported abusive and positive behaviours towards residents from the MARQUE (Managing Agitation and Raising Quality of Life) English national care home survey, PLoS One, 13(3), pp.
Earnshaw, V. and Quinn, D. (2011) The impact of stigma in healthcare on people living with chronic illnesses, Journal of Health Psychology, 17(2), pp. 157168.
Moore, S. (2020) The sound of silence: evidence of the continuing under reporting of abuse in care homes, The Journal of Adult Protection, 22(1), pp. 35-48.
National Institute for Health Research & School for Social Care Research (2009) Keeping control: exploring mental health service user perspectives on targeted violence and abuse in the context of adult safeguarding. London: Middlesex University.
Talumaa, B. et al. (2022) Effective strategies in ending weight stigma in healthcare. Obesity Reviews, pp. 1-16.
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