Elder financial abuse and the COVID-19 pandemic: A call to action through training programmes?

Q3 Medicine
Vaitsa Giannouli, Magda Tsolaki
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Unfortunately, there are scarce organized large-scale research attempts at national and none at international level to focus on financial abuse of elders suffering from different types of neurocognitive disorders as well as healthy elders, not only before the COVID-19 era, but especially during and after COVID-19 health and social crisis.4 In addition to the lack of research neglecting the cross-cultural perspective, there is also a dire need to refocus previous research attempts that mainly examine perceptions of financial abuse with experimental manipulations, not in real world situations and only from the viewpoint of the patient/family, while disregarding the attitudes and education /educational needs of healthcare experts.5 Future research questions that deserve to be examined, but still remain unanswered, are: What are the cognitive-emotional characteristics of elders prone to abuse and of the persons in their social environment? How do medical-psychiatric conditions influence elders financial abuse? What and how do individuals and groups from different social and cultural settings define-perceive financial abuse and the characteristics of the 'offender' and 'victim'? Under what real-life conditions we-as-'guardians' detect and are willing to report elder financial abuse and how can we 'protect' elders? What do we expect from the state, legal systems and the important others to do? What do elders themselves think and feel about financial abuse and how do they react? What is the 'correct reaction/directives'? What are healthcare professionals' attitudes and knowledge on this topic? Could all the above-mentioned points be taught in programmes? All the above will not only give an alternative viewpoint on this hot, complex multifaceted ethical, legal and practical issue (that many of us are concerned with, but at the same time are unwilling to systematically explore), but may assist us in understanding, planning and acting 'appropriately'. For that to happen, different questions should be addressed and a combination of methods is needed (mixed quantitative and qualitative designs in cross-cultural settings). A final point that may help to elucidate this confusing problem is the introduction of new statistical approaches such as multilevel analyses, which allow simultaneous examination of group-level (society) and individual-level (elder) factors and thus reveal to us the broader context. Financial education programmes for the prevention of financial exploitation use a wide and appropriate range of delivery methods and dissemination channels focusing on the deficits, strengths as well as needs of the target groups (older adults, family members/caregivers, healthcare professionals). Due to the complex social situation, it is imperative to educate older adults as well as their caregivers to make sound financial decisions with the resources available. Such programmes have already success, because they provide not only access to financial advisors available for advice and questions on financial issues, they provide resources which are user-friendly (based on the reading level of the older individuals and caregivers), but include enough detail to be useful in planning.6 In the cases of individuals without computer access or without computer literacy, alternative options are offered, such as services accessible over the phone or in person, brochures, handouts, or other written materials, or individual sessions and classes.6 The aim of promotion of financial education on a regular basis, (both via interactive online and with the use of offline resources), includes information fostering knowledge of money management and scam prevention, not only on an individual, but at the community level.7 Revisiting existing research and asking for an update on emerging issues and unexplored realms is a researchers' obligation. So, are existing educational programmes adequate? A contemporary empirical re-assessment will tell us and old and new questions will make us ponder where to go next.</p>","PeriodicalId":20741,"journal":{"name":"Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.22365/jpsych.2022.090","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1

Abstract

Within the last decade, there has been a growing debate regarding financial capacity and abuse as one of the most important challenges that older adults are facing in their everyday lives.1 Currently older adults are highly impacted by pre-and post-COVID-19 measures and there is a massive increase in financial exploitation reports involving older adults worldwide,2 an increase that can be attributed to a number of reasons, such as the higher rates of depression among socially isolated seniors (a diagnosis itself linked to abuse, as it can worsen elders' cognitive and physical condition by making them dependent and vulnerable), but also due to of mass redundancies, financial pressure and stress faced by younger family members (childrenandgrandchildren).3 Althoughpriorresearchemphasizedmainlyindividualcognitive aspects (e.g. financial knowledge/self-beliefs/behaviors in the financial decision-making process), the interaction with emotional and socio-cultural factors are not thoroughly examined. Unfortunately, there are scarce organized large-scale research attempts at national and none at international level to focus on financial abuse of elders suffering from different types of neurocognitive disorders as well as healthy elders, not only before the COVID-19 era, but especially during and after COVID-19 health and social crisis.4 In addition to the lack of research neglecting the cross-cultural perspective, there is also a dire need to refocus previous research attempts that mainly examine perceptions of financial abuse with experimental manipulations, not in real world situations and only from the viewpoint of the patient/family, while disregarding the attitudes and education /educational needs of healthcare experts.5 Future research questions that deserve to be examined, but still remain unanswered, are: What are the cognitive-emotional characteristics of elders prone to abuse and of the persons in their social environment? How do medical-psychiatric conditions influence elders financial abuse? What and how do individuals and groups from different social and cultural settings define-perceive financial abuse and the characteristics of the 'offender' and 'victim'? Under what real-life conditions we-as-'guardians' detect and are willing to report elder financial abuse and how can we 'protect' elders? What do we expect from the state, legal systems and the important others to do? What do elders themselves think and feel about financial abuse and how do they react? What is the 'correct reaction/directives'? What are healthcare professionals' attitudes and knowledge on this topic? Could all the above-mentioned points be taught in programmes? All the above will not only give an alternative viewpoint on this hot, complex multifaceted ethical, legal and practical issue (that many of us are concerned with, but at the same time are unwilling to systematically explore), but may assist us in understanding, planning and acting 'appropriately'. For that to happen, different questions should be addressed and a combination of methods is needed (mixed quantitative and qualitative designs in cross-cultural settings). A final point that may help to elucidate this confusing problem is the introduction of new statistical approaches such as multilevel analyses, which allow simultaneous examination of group-level (society) and individual-level (elder) factors and thus reveal to us the broader context. Financial education programmes for the prevention of financial exploitation use a wide and appropriate range of delivery methods and dissemination channels focusing on the deficits, strengths as well as needs of the target groups (older adults, family members/caregivers, healthcare professionals). Due to the complex social situation, it is imperative to educate older adults as well as their caregivers to make sound financial decisions with the resources available. Such programmes have already success, because they provide not only access to financial advisors available for advice and questions on financial issues, they provide resources which are user-friendly (based on the reading level of the older individuals and caregivers), but include enough detail to be useful in planning.6 In the cases of individuals without computer access or without computer literacy, alternative options are offered, such as services accessible over the phone or in person, brochures, handouts, or other written materials, or individual sessions and classes.6 The aim of promotion of financial education on a regular basis, (both via interactive online and with the use of offline resources), includes information fostering knowledge of money management and scam prevention, not only on an individual, but at the community level.7 Revisiting existing research and asking for an update on emerging issues and unexplored realms is a researchers' obligation. So, are existing educational programmes adequate? A contemporary empirical re-assessment will tell us and old and new questions will make us ponder where to go next.

老年人财务虐待与COVID-19大流行:通过培训规划呼吁采取行动?
在过去的十年里,关于经济能力和虐待是老年人在日常生活中面临的最重要的挑战之一的争论越来越多目前,老年人受到covid -19之前和之后措施的严重影响,全世界涉及老年人的经济剥削报告大幅增加,2这一增加可归因于许多原因,例如社会孤立的老年人患抑郁症的比例较高(这一诊断本身与虐待有关,因为它会使老年人的认知和身体状况恶化,使他们变得依赖和脆弱),但也与大规模裁员有关。年轻家庭成员(子女和孙辈)面临的经济压力和压力虽然先前的研究主要集中在个人认知方面(如金融知识/自我信念/金融决策过程中的行为),但与情感和社会文化因素的相互作用并没有得到彻底的研究。遗憾的是,无论是在COVID-19时代之前,还是在COVID-19健康和社会危机期间和之后,国内都很少有组织的大规模研究尝试,国际上也没有研究尝试关注对患有不同类型神经认知障碍的老年人以及健康老年人的经济虐待除了缺乏忽视跨文化视角的研究外,还迫切需要重新关注先前的研究尝试,这些研究主要是通过实验操作来检查对财务滥用的看法,而不是在现实世界的情况下,并且只从患者/家庭的角度出发,而忽略了医疗保健专家的态度和教育/教育需求未来值得研究但仍未得到解答的问题是:易受虐待的老年人及其社会环境中的人的认知情感特征是什么?精神疾病如何影响老年人的经济虐待?来自不同社会和文化背景的个人和群体如何定义和感知经济虐待以及“罪犯”和“受害者”的特征?在现实生活中,作为“监护人”的我们在什么情况下会发现并愿意举报老年人的经济虐待行为?我们如何“保护”老年人?我们对国家、法律体系和其他重要机构的期望是什么?长者自己对财务滥用有什么想法和感受?他们如何反应?什么是“正确的反应/指令”?医疗保健专业人员对这个话题的态度和知识是什么?上述所有要点都能在课程中教授吗?以上所述不仅会为这个热点、复杂的多方面的伦理、法律和实践问题(我们许多人都关心,但同时又不愿系统地探索)提供另一种观点,而且可能有助于我们理解、计划和“适当”行动。为了实现这一目标,应该解决不同的问题,并需要结合多种方法(跨文化环境中的混合定量和定性设计)。最后一点可能有助于阐明这个令人困惑的问题的是引入新的统计方法,如多层次分析,它允许同时检查群体层面(社会)和个人层面(老年人)的因素,从而向我们揭示更广泛的背景。防止金融剥削的金融教育方案采用了广泛而适当的实施方法和传播渠道,重点关注目标群体(老年人、家庭成员/照顾者、保健专业人员)的缺陷、优势和需求。由于复杂的社会形势,教育老年人及其照顾者利用现有资源做出合理的财务决策是势在必行的。这些方案已经取得了成功,因为它们不仅提供了向财务顾问咨询财务问题的机会,而且还提供了便于使用的资源(根据老年人和照顾者的阅读水平),而且包括了足够的细节,对规划很有用5 .对于不能使用电脑或不懂电脑的人,可以提供其他选择,例如通过电话或亲自提供服务,小册子,讲义或其他书面材料,或单独的会议和课程定期促进金融教育的目的(通过在线互动和使用线下资源)包括信息,不仅在个人层面,而且在社区层面培养资金管理和预防骗局的知识重新审视现有的研究,并要求对新出现的问题和未探索的领域进行更新,这是研究人员的义务。 那么,现有的教育项目是否足够?当代的经验重新评估将告诉我们,新旧问题将使我们思考下一步该往哪里走。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki
Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki Medicine-Medicine (all)
CiteScore
2.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
37
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