Profiling violence among elders 55+ years old living in latin america: A mass media analisis for violent prevention

Elder abuse is commonly underreported due to shame, fear of institutionalization, intimidation and lack of empathy. However, violence against elders increases mortality and morbidity rates. Following the public health violence prevention approach this study aimed to profile violence patterns suffering by those aging 55+ and their victimizers' profile. A cross-sectional study was designed for abstraction of violent events documented in the two most visited online newspapers of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Dominican Republic from January 2012 - June 2012. Univariate and bivariate analysis was performed using STATA 11.0. Results showed that violent events represented <4% of the news (n=107/2,961). A total of 54.17% of the cases were performed by a single person, in which 67.27% were males. In addition, 90.65% of the cases reported physical violence, 14.02% emotional and social, followed by 3 and 1 case of institutional or sexual violence. Domestic violence was observed in 18.69% of the cases. 80.37% of victims died, although it was barely reported its association with victimizers' mental conditions, alcohol or drug use (<5%). Regarding the victims women faced 3 times more risks of suffering emotional violence than males, but males were 2.73 more likely to die. Last victimizers were more likely to commit physical abuse against males as well as social abuse (OR =3.99 95%CI .4369-18.90). No correlations were found for age of the victimizers and type violence. In conclusion newspapers as well as research sub-estimate the violence against elders and making invisible violence disparities observed by victim and victimizers gender.