Shaw (1998)

Design: Descriptive

Method: Grounded theory

Sample: 21 semistructured interviews conducted with six abuse investigators and 15 nursing home staff

The two types of abusive nursing home staff were identified as reactive sadistic.

Wolf (1986)

Design: Descriptive

Method: Analysis of cases from an elder mistreatment intervention project

Sample: 59 elder mistreatment cases compared with 49 cases randomly selected from nonabuse caseload

Victims and nonabuse clients were similar in age, sex, and health status.

Caretakers for both groups were similar in age and health status.

More perpetrators were males.

A majority of elder mistreatment cases resided with family members versus nonabused persons living alone.

Victims and perpetrators had more psychological and emotional health problems.

Abused elders did not appear to be more dependent.

Wolf and Pillemer (1997)

Design: Descriptive

Measure: ADLs, IADLs, CTS

Sample: 73 older women: 22 victimized by husbands and 51 victimized by adult children

Wives more likely to be dependent on husbands for IADLs.

Adult children more likely to be dependent on mothers for housing and finances.

Husbands more likely to use physical violence against wives than adult children