노인학대 개입에 관한 연구

Abstract

Although the issue of elder abuse remained publicly hidden until 1990's in Korea, it has recently received increased attention by service providers and researchers. As we experience the graying of the Korean population, elder abuse becomes one of the most important issues in the contemporary society. The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in the perception of elder abuse among service providers, local government officials, and so on and develop intervention strategies to prevent various types of elder abuse cases. The methodology employs a range of different approaches to the investigation of elder abuse, including documentary analysis, surveys of service providers and case studies. In general, vignettes or scenarios are regarded as a valuable technique for collecting people's perceptions, beliefs, opinions and attitudes about specific situation. Thus this study used a questionnaire containing 12 scenarios on elder abuse. Each scenario required a response of either strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree on hypothetical elder abuse situation. Of the 300 questionnaires that were distributed, 206 were returned. The responses to the questions were then analyzed by way of statistical analysis such as descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and factor analysis. The results of the survey are as follows. First, according to factor analysis, the respondents perceived elder abuse as two types. One is intentional elder abuse and the other is unintentional elder abuse. Second, there are significant differences in the perception of elder abuse among respondents according to gender, age, job, health status, economic status. Third, the existence of elder person(s) in the family influences the perception of elder abuse. Fourth, whether a respondent had taken Welfare for the Age at the time of university education, whether or not a respondent had taken Elder Abuse at the time of university student, whether or not a respondent knows mandatory reporting laws, at least in part, influences the perception of elder abuse. To conclude, the most significant types of elder abuse are physical abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, economic abuse and neglect. In addition, according to the results of case studies, there is a urgent need to develop intervention strategies to prevent elder abuse. Accordingly, intervention strategies are explored and presented on the basis of various types of elder abuse, characteristics of abuser and abused, and the process of intervention. A number of recommendations are made, including enhancing education and public relation about elder abuse for the medical professionals.