Prevalence study of abuse and violence against older women: results of a multi-cultural survey conducted in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, and Portugal

Introduction
• The study included women aged between 60 and 97 years who were living in
private households. The survey asked about violence and abuse in the last 12
months. 2880 women were surveyed across five countries during 2010.
• So-called “stranger violence” was ruled out and only perpetrators who were in
the women's close circles were considered.
• Response rates ranged from 26.1% (Belgium) to 49.1% (Austria).
Prevalence of violence and abuse
• Overall, 28.1% of older women had experienced some kind of violence or
abuse. By country the prevalence rates were as follows:
• Portugal 39.4% (postal survey)
• Belgium 32.0% (postal survey and face-to-face interviews)
• Finland 25.1% (postal survey)
• Austria 23.8% (telephone survey (CATI))
• Lithuania 21.8% (face-to-face interviews)
• Generally, emotional abuse was the most common form of violence
experienced (23.6%) followed by financial abuse (8.8%), violation of rights
(6.4%) and neglect (5.4%). Sexual abuse (3.1%) and physical violence
(2.5%) were the least reported forms.
Perpetrators
• In most cases, perpetrators of emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse
and violation of rights were the women's partners or spouses. The exception
to this was in relation to neglect, where in most cases older women were
abused by their adult children or children-in-law.
Intensity of violence
• 7.6% of older women had experienced a single form of abuse, but infrequently.
• 13.5% had experienced several forms of abuse, but infrequently.
• 1.2% had experienced a single form of abuse very often.
• 5.8% had experienced multiple forms of abuse very often.
Prevalence Study of Abuse and Violence against Older Women – Final Report
8
Risk factors
• There were considerable differences between countries with regard to
prevalence rates. However, connections between risk factors and abuse and
violence were apparent regardless of country.
• The likelihood of abuse is lower in higher age groups.
• There was a significant association between abuse and violence and reduced
physical health, poor mental health, managing poorly with household
income, not participating in social activities, living with spouse or partner or
with adult children, and loneliness.
After the abuse
• The most common effects of violence and abuse were tension, anger, hatred
and feelings of powerlessness.
• Nearly half of the abused women (44.7%) talked with somebody they knew
about the most serious incident or reported it to an official agency. In Portugal
and Lithuania, however, only a quarter of the abused women talked about the
incident with anyone else.
• The majority of older women did not talk with anybody else about the abusive
incident(s). Mostly women thought the incident was too trivial to report or
discuss or considered that nobody could do anything about the situation.
Quality of Life
• In relation to abuse in overall terms, the findings are unambiguous: older
women who had experienced any kind of abuse reported having significantly
lower quality of life than older women who had not experienced abuse.
Daphne III