Care With Abused / Neglected Patient: Key Concepts

Here are the key concepts in caring patient with abuse or neglect:

• Both of abuse and neglect can occur as physical, sexual, and psychological. They can come to all ages and affect both genders from all socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural groups.
• The nurse should ask direct questions during assessment and should be in private.
• All disabled and elderly clients should be asked for possible abuse or neglect.
• Domestic violence: child abuse, elder abuse, and abuse of women and men.
• Abuse or neglect is rarely a one-time occurrence, it usually continues and escalates in severity.
• Sexual abuse in female: have more health problem and undergo more surgeries than nonvictims
• Sexual abuse in childhood: they will experience more chronic depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, morbid obesity, marital instability, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, and greater reliance on health care services than nonvictims
• Abused risk factors are high levels of stress or alcoholism in caregivers, high emotions, evidence of violence, financial dependency or physical dependency
• Symptoms of client with abuse: suicide attemps, drug and alcohol abuse, frequent emergency department visits, multiple injuries, unexplained injuries, vague pelvic pain, depression, and insomnia



• Symptoms of client with neglect: poor hygiene, hunger, dehydration, pain, unkempt appearance, inadequate clothing or shoes, unfilled medication prescriptions, missed appointments with healthcare provider, and lack of ancillary devices
• Nurse roles in caring patient with abuse: documents the event, provides drawings or photos of injuries, examine the entire surface of patient's body, assessess patient's interactions with others, and performs a mental status examination
• Nurse's primary attention is the safety of the patient: separated from abuser, support the patient, and collaboration with interdisciplinary team
• The nurse should evaluates the response of patient, family and significant others to every interventions and do updates if necessary