Introduction: Elder abuse is a prevalent phenomenon affecting one in six older adults in the general population. It results in compromised physical health, psychological distress, and increased mortality risk in victims, as well as greater financial burdens on social and health care for the society at large. Given such detrimental consequences, considerable efforts have been made to develop interventions to address this issue.
Purpose: This study compared the effectiveness of a 4-session motivational interviewing (MI) program and an 8-session case management (CM) program in reducing abuse severity, promoting physical and mental health, general self-efficacy, social support, and motivation to change. Trained social workers with a background in gerontology delivered the intervention.
Methods: Baseline data was collected from 129 older adults screened positive for elder abuse in a community survey. Assessments were repeated at the end of the intervention for the 86 cases receiving MI intervention and 43 cases receiving case management, and at 3-month follow up for 20 cases in the MI group. No demographic difference was observed between cases assigned to MI and CM at baseline.
Results: Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to examine intervention outcomes by different time points. At post-test, the MI group demonstrated significant improvement in abuse severity, psychological distress, general self-efficacy, social support and motivation to change (p<.001). The CM group also showed improvement in these areas with the exception of general self-efficacy (p<.01). Significant difference was observed between MI and CM groups in their improvement in general self-efficacy. Abuse severity and psychological distress continued to decrease between post-intervention and 3 month-follow-up in the MI group (p<.05).
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that MI is a cost-effective intervention for reducing abuse severity and improve the risk profiles of participants.