The following is part of our project “Increasing Access to Justice for Older Adult Victims of Sexual Assault: A Capacity Building Approach”, funded by the Justice Canada Victims Fund.Learn more about this project or consult the full list of resources
''Despite an increasing literature related to elder abuse, sexual abuse of older persons in general and of vulnerable adults living in nursing homes in particular is still sparsely described. The purpose of this study was to assess the state of knowledge on the subject of sexual abuse against older nursing home residents through a literature review. Systematic searches in reference databases including Cinahl, Medline, OVID Nursing Database, ISI Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, and SveMed + were conducted. Through several phases of selection of the articles, using strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, six articles were chosen for a deeper examination. Findings from the review show that sexual abuse occurs in nursing homes and that both older women and men are victims of sexual abuse. Perpetrators appear mainly to be staff and other residents and mainly to be men, but also women abuse both older men and older women. Findings from the literature review show that there is a need for knowledge and further research on the topic of sexual abuse against older residents in nursing homes. Furthermore, there is a need for good policies and reporting systems, as an important step in seriously addressing sexual abuse against older persons.
The main purpose of this study was to answer thefollowing:
What knowledge do we have about sexual abuseof older nursing home residents? The concrete researchquestions were the following:
(1) How is sexual abuse defined in the studies?
(2) What knowledge do we have about prevalence andtypes of sexual abuse in nursing homes?
(3) What knowledge do we have about the characteristicsof the victims and perpetrators?
(4)What do we know about the consequences for thevictims and perpetrators?
(5) Do we know anything about how the nursing homesrespond to sexual abuse?''
Source: Nursing Research and Practice
