Seven candidate interventions to address abuse of older people

Abstract

The Abuse of Older People – Intervention Accelerator (AOP-IA) project aims to accelerate the development of effective interventions to prevent and reduce AOP aged 60 and older within the framework of the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030). The AOP-IA was launched in response to the global need for interventions with proven effectiveness, as few existing approaches have been rigorously evaluated. This paper focuses on the first two phases of the AOP-IA project, which involved conducting a systematic search, screening and evaluation process to identify candidate interventions ready to be rigorously evaluated in future stages of the project, as well as establishing a network of intervention developers. The identification of interventions included an initial screening of 13 926 records and two rounds of evaluations by an expert panel. From this process, 89 promising interventions were identified, and subsequently, seven candidate interventions were selected for more rigorous scientific testing and evaluation. An adapted version of the Systematic Screening and Assessment Method was used to identify these interventions. The AOP-IA project demonstrates that interventions to prevent and reduce abuse of older adults exist in a variety of settings and countries, and that several interventions are ready for a rigorous evaluation to support continual programme improvement by intervention developers and long-term sustainability and scale-up globally.