Associations among Elder Abuse, Depression and PTSD in South Korean Older Adults

Yun-Jung Choi, Meaghan O’Donnell, Hwa-Bok Choi, Hae-Sun Jung and Sean Cowlishaw
Additional contact information
Yun-Jung Choi: Red Cross College of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea
Meaghan O’Donnell: Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia
Hwa-Bok Choi: Red Cross College of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea
Hae-Sun Jung: Red Cross College of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea
Sean Cowlishaw: Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-8

Abstract: Increasing attention is being placed on the prevalence of elder abuse and its impact on mental health. This study conducted a survey of 172 elderly people in South Korea to determine the prevalence of elder abuse and the relationships involving elder abuse, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires, which included the Korean Geriatric Depression Screening Scale (KGDS) and Impact of Event Scale-Revised Korean version (IES-R-K). Descriptive analyses were conducted to examine the frequency of specific forms of abuse. Logistic regression models were estimated to identify the factors that contributed to risk of abuse exposure and the relationship between exposure and PTSD or depression. The results indicated around 22% of the participants reported abuse exposure, which most commonly included being refused physical contact, verbal threats, and/or being excluded from decision-making about personal issues. Low education and being unmarried, separated or divorced was associated with an increased risk of abuse exposure. There were strong associations between elder abuse and PTSD symptoms, while comparable relationships with depression were weaker and were not robust to the inclusion of control variables. The findings provided empirical support for the relationship between abuse experiences of the elderly and poor mental health and raise important issues for the mental health care of the elderly.

Keywords: depression; elder abuse; mistreatment; older adults; PTSD; senior citizens (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1948/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1948/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:9:p:1948-:d:168275

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().