Assessment tools for elder abuse: scoping review.

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Public Health
• Social Work

Background:

• Elder abuse is a significant public health concern requiring accurate measurement.
• Existing assessment tools for elder abuse vary in scope and psychometric validation.
• A comprehensive understanding of available tools and their properties is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically map and evaluate the psychometric properties of existing elder abuse assessment tools.
• To identify the most prevalent and validated instruments for elder abuse detection and risk assessment.

Main Methods:

• A scoping review was conducted following the JBI Institute Reviewer's Manual guidelines.
• Searches were performed across academic databases and gray literature.
• Identified tools were categorized and their psychometric properties analyzed.

Main Results:

• Seventeen distinct tools for elder abuse assessment were identified.
• Tools were classified into those assessing risk for abuse and those identifying abuse.
• The Vulnerability to Abuse Screening Scale demonstrated good internal reliability (0.74) and acceptable factorial analysis.
• The Assessment Tool for Domestic Elder Abuse covers six types of abuse but has psychometric limitations regarding internal structure validity.

Conclusions:

• A range of seventeen tools exists for assessing elder abuse occurrence and risk, each with unique psychometric characteristics.
• Due to the complexity of elder abuse and the limitations of single instruments, using multiple tools is recommended for accurate measurement.
• Further research is needed to develop and validate comprehensive instruments addressing all facets of elder abuse.