SAVE – Screening for Abuse Victims among Elderly Erasmus Project

Project Title

SAVE – Screening for Abuse Victims among Elderly

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Screening for Abuse Victims among Elderly (SAVE) project aims to improve identification and intervention on violence against older persons in social and health care services and improve the teachers/trainers knowledge and skills in teaching/training in the area. That area of social and health care services is becoming more and more important because Europe is facing an accelerated process of aging, which will increase in the next years (the percentage of persons aged over 65 years old is projected to be of 29,5% in 2060 – EUROPOP2010). The extent of elder abuse can be expected to grow with it (WHO. Media Centre 2017). However, it is widely understood that violence against older persons is underreported. The reasons for this are that the social and health care providers are inadequately trained in how to recognize violence and support older victims of domestic violence. There are also deficient national healthcare guidelines and lacking best practices for dealing with violence of older victims.

Using screening tools for identification is rare in European health care services. SAVE project will use in earlier researches validated screening instruments to help professionals to recognize and assess violence and neglect of older persons. Screening for elder abuse is defined as a process of obtaining information about violent experiences in a caring or family relationship from older or vulnerable persons who do not have obvious sign of violence such as physical injuries. The rationale for screening among non-symptomatic persons is that identification may prevent future violence and reduce risk of future health impacts resulting from violence. Screening is considered particularly important for problems with serious health implications, and where overall rates of identification are considered low. This is certainly the case for elder abuse and neglect. (Margot J. Schofield 2017). As many as 80 percent of elder abuse cases may not be diagnosed (WHO 2008).

Elder abuse is important to recognize because of significant psychological and physical consequences of violence, including cognitive impairment/dementia, depression and anxiety (Carmel Bitondo-Dyer et al 2000; Joan M. Cook et al 2011), bone or joint problems, digestive problems, high blood pressure and heart and lung problems (Lazenbatt et al 2010; Bonnie S. Fisher et al 2011), suicidal thoughts and attempts (Barron 2007) and poorer overall life expectancy (Charles P. Mouton 2003).
Types of elder abuse include: emotional, physical, sexual and financial violence, neglect and violation of personal rights (Luoma et al. 2011). The prevalence rates in Europe vary between 0,8 % – 29,3 %; for men 0,7 % – 15 % and women 0,9 % – 23,3 %. (Liesbeth De Donder et al 2011). There are estimations that abuse as a problem might be broader in the future because of significantly fast growing amount of older people in many European countries. (Stankunas Mindaugas et al 2016).
SAVE project will target:
– social and health care professionals working in home care, residential care facilities, health centres and hospitals
– social and health care teachers and trainers
– local/regional social and health care decision makers in the community
Specific objectives of the project include:
– increase knowledge of screening tools and their suitability in identification of violence against older persons in social and health care services
– improve capacity of social and health care professionals to identify and intervene and support and refer the cases of violence against older persons to relevant services
– develop educators’ competences to teach professionals how to deal with violence against older persons and to support and mentor them
– produce an interactive training program for improving active and innovative learning of social and health care teachers, trainers and professionals in identification and intervention in case of violence against older persons.
SAVE project will produce a literature review about the number and quality of screening instruments for older adult’s mistreatment. Based on the review the partners will develop the country specific recommendations for the use of screening instruments. A training curriculum and material on identification and intervention on violence against older persons will also be produced. The training curriculum will be a special component of social and health care professionals’ training and teaching. It will concentrate on special features of elder abuse and its identification by using validated screening instruments. The piloting of screening instruments will lead to identification and intervention procedures in the work places. Online course will be developed based on the training curriculum. In the end of the project the country specific recommendations for the use of screening instruments will be synthesize as European level recommendations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 205885 Eur

Project Coordinator

PCG Polska Sp. z o.o. & Country: PL

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO
• ANZIANI E NON SOLO SOCIETA COOPERATIVA SOCIALE
• TECHNOLOGIKO PANEPISTIMIO KYPROU
• Voimaa Vanhuuteen – osk VoiVa – Empowering Old Age Coop
• Cooperativa Assistenza Disabili infermi Anziani Infanzia