Relationship between Psychopathological Symptoms and Family Functioning in Older Adults Victims of Family Violence

Abstract

Introduction: Families are an important social support for the welfare of their members, especially older adults, who are vulnerable to familial mistreatment, which can affect their quality of life and produce psychopathological symptoms; however, there is little scientific evidence about this relationship.

Objective: To analyze the relationship between psychopathological symptoms and family functioning in older adults who are victims of family violence.

Methods: Cross-sectional and correlational study carried out in La Esperanza district hospital, in Trujillo, Peru, between June and October 2019. The population was made up of 170 older adults attended in the psychological consultation. A convenience sample of 151 older adults was chosen: 84 victims and 67 non-victims of mistreatment. The instruments used were the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and the Apgar-family questionnaires. Data were processed with Spearman's coefficient of correlation, Rupinski and Dunlap's transformation formula, and Cohen's q.

Results: Family functioning showed inverse relationships with somatization and depression in victims (r=-0.481; -0.536) and non-victims of family violence (r=-0.329; -0.387). Victims presented negative relationships of family functioning with obsession-compulsion (r=-0.336), interpersonal sensitivity (r=-0.314), anxiety (r=-0.355), hostility (r=-0.435) and paranoid ideation (r=-0.511). The proportion of differences between sample correlations yielded a large effect size between family functioning and paranoid ideation, while it is average between hostility and family functioning.

Conclusions: There is correlation between psychopathological symptoms and family functioning in older adult who are victims and non-victims of family violence, with differences between correlations of both samples in the relationship of family functioning with hostility and paranoid ideation, respectively.