Elder abuse: do general practitioners know or care?

A pilot survey in Tower Hamlets, London, indicated that many general practi tioners (GPs) might not be recognizing abuse of elderly patients through la ck of training. The survey was replicated on a large scale in Birmingham, t o allow further analysis. 561 Birmingham GPs were mailed questionnaires and responses from 291 were a nalysed, providing data from 95% of the practices. The findings were simila r to those in Tower Hamlets: just under half had diagnosed elder abuse in t he previous year. Regression analysis of the combined data-sets (n=363) ind icated that the strongest factor predicting GP diagnosis of abuse was knowl edge of 5 or more risk situations (odds ratio 6.77, 95% confidence interval 4.19, 10.93). The findings of these surveys suggest that research-based education and tra ining would help GPs to become better at identifying and managing elder abu se.