Annotated Bibliography of Elder Mistreatment/Elder Abuse Research Publications

This elder mistreatment annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources of elder mistreatment/elder abuse research. The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to provide a review of the research literature on elder abuse, illustrate the quality of research that has been completed, and inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the source. It is not for the purpose of mimicking a research article’s abstract.

Literature searches were conducted using PubMed (including MEDLINE and OLDMEDLINE), the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), CINAHL-Plus, IndexCat: Index-Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Office, PsycINFO, Lexis-Nexis, Web of Science, and AgeLine. Articles met the following project inclusion criteria: English-language, complete research on abuse of persons 55 years and older, and were from any county. Each article in the annotated bibliography is linked to the PubMed citation if available, allowing researchers to access abstracts and obtain copies of cited works.

Each research publication was critically reviewed and assigned an evidence grade based upon the type and strength of evidence from research. Research varies in terms of different methodological validity, how results are presented and how they translate to an individual patient. The grading schema used to make recommendations was:

   A = Evidence from well-designed meta-analysis.
   B = Evidence from well-designed controlled trials, both randomized and nonrandomized, with results that consistently support a specific action (e.g., assessment, intervention or treatment).
   C = Evidence from observational studies (e.g., correlational, descriptive studies) or controlled trials with inconsistent results.
   D = Evidence from expert opinion or multiple case reports.