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Older Mexican woman with food
Project
Project Type - Pilot Projects

Characterizing Mistreatment in Mexican Cognitively Impaired Older Adults

Determining the correlates of mistreatment among cognitively impaired older adults and their caregivers
Northern America

Overview

In Mexico, the incidence of cognitive impairment and its social consequences such as elder mistreatment is increasing rapidly. Cognitively impaired individuals have been excluded from mistreatment studies in this region leaving their situation unknown. Our aim is to determine the correlates of mistreatment among cognitively impaired older adults (aged > 60) and their caregivers (CG).

Project Details

A cross-sectional study will be conducted in at least 198 community-dwelling Mexican CG–care recipient (CR) dyads. Cognitive impairment in the CR will be defined according to the DSM V criteria. Performance below 1.5 standard deviations (SD) in any cognitive domain in the Brief Neuropsychological Test Battery will be considered impaired for that domain. Mistreatment will be determined with three different instruments: The Geriatric Mistreatment Scale and the Caregiver Abuse Screen will be applied in the CG-CR dyads; in addition, the assessing research team member will complete the general aspect items of the Elder Assessment Instrument.

An expert panel will consider the information obtained and decide on the occurrence of the following types of abuse: physical, psychological, sexual, financial abuse, and neglect. Literature-supported factors associated with mistreatment will be assessed in the CG and CR (sociodemographic, economic, health, burden of care and cultural variables). We will use descriptive statistics, chi-square tests for categorical variables, and t-tests for continuous variables. Logistic regression models will be created to determine the correlates of mistreatment. 

Our primary outcome will be to identify variables that are associated with mistreatment among dyads. As a secondary outcome, we will show which impaired cognitive domains are associated with elder mistreatment. As an exploratory outcome, we will investigate which items from each instrument used to detect mistreatment better identify it.

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