Violência doméstica e negligência contra o idoso: avaliação do conhecimento dos agentes comunitários de saúde do serviço público de Lagarto – SE

Abstract

Violence against the elderly is a problem that expands significantly, affecting all groups without social or racial discrimination. There are constant cases of violence against this age group, most of them by family members or with some kind of connection with the victim. This study aimed to evaluate the perception, knowledge and attitude of the Community Health Agent (ACS) of the public health network of the city of Lagarto-SE in the face of domestic violence and neglect of the elderly population. This study has a descriptive, quantitative and transversal character, in which questionnaires were applied to the ACS. The home visit was the way of identification of situations of violence against the elderly mentioned among the participants (85.5%, n = 65), followed by complaints (31.6%, n = 24) and by the evaluation of the elderly in the Health Units; it was also pointed out that financial violence (36.8%, n = 28), psychological violence (34.2%, n = 26) and abandonment/neglect (28.9%; n = 22) were the types of intrafamily violence against the elderly with higher frequency in this study. It is concluded that violence against the elderly is known to the ACS and can be detected by most of them, and the main form of solution considered by the interviewees concerns the monitoring of the families/caretaker and notification to the Municipal Council of the Elderly.