This study analyzed the relationships between social capital, loneliness, and maltreatment of older Mexican adults during the social distancing measures promoted to contain the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19. The results show that social capital, either structural-cognitive or just cognitive, was associated with less abuse during confinement. Also, loneliness, regardless of having or not having social capital, continues to be an essential predictor of elder abuse. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that analyzes the relationship between social capital, loneliness, and the maltreatment of older Mexican people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prevalence of maltreatment in older Mexican people was 9.8% during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic from March to December 2020. The prevalence of abuse among older people during the COVID-19 pandemic exhibits significant variability that could be attributable to the different study designs, the instruments to measure it, the target population, and the study period. In Japan, a prevalence of 1.6% was reported (Koga et al. 2022); in Korea 8.5% (Son and Cho 2022); in Mexican women 10.7% (Rivera et al., 2023); in China, 15.4% (Du and Chen 2021); in the United States 21.3% (Chang and Levy 2021). Another study with hospitalized older adults, found a prevalence of 45% (Filipska et al. 2021). Some of these studies found increases in the prevalence estimates before the pandemic (Chang & Levy, 2021; Du & Chen, 2021), and others found no differences before and after the pandemic (Weissberger et al. 2022).
Given that 52.8% of the older people who suffered abuse reported that this had never happened before the pandemic, it could be hypothesized that the stress experienced during the pandemic by those close to the victim could be a trigger for the abuse, at least partially. Some studies have reported that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were economic, work, and life pressures and stresses in general, so that factors could contribute to the increase in abuse of older persons (Chang & Levy, 2021; Filipska et al., 2021). Yunus et al. (2021) argues that the increase in abuse could be related to: 1) Stay-at-home measures that force victims to remain close to the perpetrators, 2) Social distancing measures make vulnerable people they are socially isolated, so they have fewer possibilities to seek help, and 3) The negative impact caused by anxiety and tension at home. These factors may have been exacerbated in older people, as in old age, there may be an increase in chronic disease, functional limitations, and the need for care (Yunus et al., 2021). Regarding caregivers, a study found an increase in stress levels, alcohol consumption, and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, which are, in turn, risk factors associated with elder abuse (Makaroun et al. 2021).
Our findings show that the combination of cognitive and structural social capital, or only cognitive social capital, was significantly associated with a lower probability of suffering maltreatment among older people, a similar result to the reported in the literature. One study found that older people who trust in the community, a component of cognitive social capital, had less physical, psychological, or any other type of abuse than those who did not trust their community (Koga et al. 2020). In this regard, people with trust in the community will likely have more opportunities to share their problems or sympathize with each other, which can help victims emotionally (Koga et al., 2020). For example, one study found that cognitive social capital mitigated the risk of depressive symptoms in older adults with restricted social relationships due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Sato et al. 2022). The present study found no significant association between structural social capital and elder abuse. Social distancing measures may have affected the intensity of social participation and the support network of the older person (both key components of structural social capital). However, more studies and empirical evidence are required to corroborate or reject this hypothesis.
Loneliness may be a side effect of social distancing measures promoted to contain the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and may also result from low social capital. However, loneliness represents a potent risk factor for elder abuse. Our findings indicate that older people with frequent feelings of loneliness were likelier to suffer abuse during confinement. These results are consistent with previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic (Filipska et al. 2021; Son and Cho 2022). Filipska et al. found that people with lousy family relationships were likelier to suffer abuse. In other words, although social isolation measures were designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, these measures have contributed to feelings of loneliness and abandonment among older people (Filipska et al., 2021). As older adults became isolated due to pandemic-related restrictions and their circle of friends narrowed, the likelihood of maltreatment by those close to them increased (Son and Cho 2022).
Our study has several strengths. First, the maltreatment of older Mexican people during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been analyzed for the first time with a nationally representative sample. Second, our study incorporates the full scale to assess social capital in its cognitive and structural dimensions (Ng and Eriksson 2015). However, there are also some limitations. Firstly, the cross-sectional design does not allow for causal inferences. Secondly, the face-to-face interview can cause older people not to want to talk about the abuse they are experiencing, and therefore its prevalence is higher than what we are reporting. Thirdly, an abbreviated version of the Geriatric Mistreatment Scale (Giraldo-Rodríguez and Rosas-Carrasco 2013) was used, which may imply an underestimated prevalence of older people abuse. Studies conducted before the pandemic using the full scale reported higher prevalences than ours (Vilar-Compte et al. 2018).