Aged care nurses' perception of unwanted sexual behaviour in Australian residential aged care services

To explore aged care nurses' awareness and experience of unwanted sexual behaviour (USB) in residential aged care services (RACS).

An anonymous online questionnaire was administered to an opportunistic sample of RACS nurses enrolled to complete an e-learning course in Australia. From the 167 participants who expressed interest to enrol, 129 were eligible and 53 returned completed consent forms.

46/53 responded of which most were females (41/45, 91.1%). Few respondents reported resident-resident USB (<35%) or staff-resident USB (<22%) happened once a year. Most respondents had not been informed by a resident of USB (>75%) or had personally reported USB within their internal reporting system (>77%). Respondents were also unaware if their facility had lodged an incident report to the regulator or law enforcement authorities within the past 12 months (34/46, 73.9%). Finally, most considered there to be no barriers to reporting USB (35/46, 77.8%).

Respondents' awareness and estimates of USB directed at residents were much lower than known national prevalence rates. This lack of awareness could be a substantive barrier to recognition and optimal management of this form of abuse.