Background

Violence against the elderly is one of the major social health problems in today’s societies, and its incidence has increased sharply in the last two decades. There are numerous challenges related to this issue.

Objectives

The present study wasn conducted to analyse the concept of violence against the elderly.

Material and methods

The present study was conducted using Walker and Avant’s approach in eight steps by searching and analysing studies from valid databases using the keywords elderly people, elderly person, violence, aggression, elderly, older, adult, geriatric, abuse, mistreatment violence and the elderly and elder abuse. The inclusion criteria included related Persian and English studies carried out between 2000 and 2020. Finally, as many as 63 articles related to the concept were analysed.

Results

Violence against the elderly can be defined as injury or discomfort caused by an action and its repetition or failure to take action in an event for which appropriate action had been expected; the human dignity of an elderly person is, thus, threatened. Such violence is understood as emotional-mental violence, self-neglect, physical violence, economic violence, sexual violence, neglect and inattention. Moreover, its consequences are personal burnout and helplessness, family dysfunction and socially harmful consequences.

Conclusions

Defining a concept derived from violence against the elderly can help health workers, especially nurses, have a better understanding about this issue; they will, thus, conduct studies, interventions and evaluations of nursing actions to promote the elderly health.