Staff-Reported Strategies for Prevention and Management of Resident-to-Resident Elder Mistreatment in Long-term Care Facilities

• NCJ Number: 255194
• Author(s): Tony Rosen; Mark S. Lachs; Jeanne A. Teresi; Joseph Elmicke; Kimberly Van Haitsma; Karl Pillemer
• Date Published: 2016
• Length: 13 pages
• Grant Number(s): NIJ FYO 42USC3721
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description

Annotation

Since resident-to-resident elder mistreatment (R-REM) in nursing homes is frequent and leads to adverse outcomes and nursing home staff responses may significantly mitigate R-REM's impact, this study identified common staff responses to R-REM.

Abstract

Interviews were conducted with 282 certified nursing assistants (CNAs) in five urban nursing homes to determine their responses to R-REM during the previous 2 weeks among residents under their care. A total of 97 CNAs (34.4 percent) reported responding to R-REM incidents that involved 182 residents (10.8 percent), describing 22 different responses. The most common responses were physically intervening/separating residents (51), talking calmly to sooth residents (50), no intervention (39), and verbally intervening to defuse the situation (38). Less common were notifying a nurse (13) or documenting the incident in the behavior log (4). Overall, nursing home staff reported many and varied responses to R-REM, a common and dangerous occurrence; however, CNAs seldom documented R-REM behaviors or reported them to nurses. (publisher abstract modified)