Violence between intimate partners knows no age limit

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1327

Published 18 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1327
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1327

Letters

Intimate partner violence

Violence between intimate partners knows no age limit

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The emphasis in Hegarty et al’s review of the prevalenceof violence between intimate partners is young to middle agedadults.¹ Child abuse and domestic violence have rightly receivedincreasing attention and awareness, but the issue of elder abusestill lags behind in this regard. The US National Academy ofSciences noted recently that there were fewer than 50 empiricalstudies on elder abuse in the peer reviewed literature, andit is a pity that Hegarty et al did not clarify that intimatepartner violence also affects older people.²

Few prevalence studies exist on violence and intimate partnerviolence among older people, rates of all forms of elder abuseranging from 3% to10%; in one study, violence was recorded by3.2% of older adults surveyed.³ Until recently, there were evenfewer data on intimate partner violence among older people.In a study in Kentucky, 2.8% of women over the age . . . [Full text of this article]

Desmond O’Neill, associate professor in medical gerontology¹, Clodagh O’Dwyer, senior registrar, medical gerontology¹, Hannah McGee, professor²

¹ Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland, ² Department of Health Services Research, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin 2

doneill@tcd.ie

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Violence between intimate partners: working with the whole family: Kelsey Hegarty, Angela Taft, and Gene Feder
BMJ 2008 337: a839. [Extract] [Full Text]