Older Persons Who Are Abused,

¶ … older persons who are abused, neglected, and exploited in rural America Quantitative Research Method "The barriers to effectively recognize, report, and respond to the needs of older persons who are abused, neglected, and exploited in rural America" The Quantitative research method is any research method or design that relies on numerical findings, data analysis using those findings and an interpretation of that data. Some examples of quantitative research are observation of numbers of occurrences and even questionnaires with numerically rated responses to distinct questions.

The quantitative method is said not to be subjective and relies on data analysis to help argue a specific stated hypothesis. Data materials are quantifiable and of course observational data which can be quantified and creates a picture of the phenomena or hypothesis being studied, without being obtrusive to participants. (Trochim, 2001, pp. 152-167) There are many reasons to utilize a quantitative research design, the most pressing of which is specific individual understanding of phenomena being observed in a hypothesis. (Poggenpoel & Myburgh, 2005, p.

304) In applying the quantitative method to the issue: "The barriers to effectively recognize, report, and respond to the needs of older persons who are abused, neglected, and exploited in rural America" this researcher would employ the observation and quantitative method to test outcomes of a pretest/posttest scenario of an intervention method that would give first responders and primary care staff a system to effectively recognize, report, and respond to the needs of older persons who are abused, neglected, and exploited in rural America.

Pretest would be interview based and include questions about number of suspected cases seen and number of cases reported for follow up by law enforcement and/or public health referral. Participants (n 50) would be local emergency care nurses and other providers, public health nurses, home health care nurses. The questions would be different for the affected various health care team members, depending on the area of health care delivery offered.

Health care providers would be most effective at answering questions about perceptions of risk factors as well as what policies, procedures, laws, regulations, reporting standards and community resources would be needed to mitigate occurrences or avoid them altogether. (Day, 2007, p.

169) the reason for choosing the pretest posttest, intervention interview method would be to create a clear look at the usefulness of an curriculum that involved recognition, identification and formal intervention regarding elder abuse and/or neglect to see if such an intervention would aide more individuals in harm's way than the current practices of ad hoc response to such suspicion.

The training system would also include several reporting tools including but not limited to an abuse questionnaire offered to those who they perceive as being at risk, which would be included as part of the health interview and to be administered to those who present in care settings and a system of follow up responses, contacts and alternatives associated with the event.

"Although physicians and nurses are best positioned to recognize and diagnose cases of elder abuse, the level of reporting these cases is much lower than its true incidence." (Almogue, Weiss, Marcus & Beloosesky, 2010, p. 86) One of the major problems, as quantitative researchers is that the research is limited in scope as it is defining a time and space sequence and is dependent upon quantifiable data.

Additionally the pretest post test method relies on the implementation of an untried educational tool that may or may not elicit the desired response, i.e. increased intervention capacity for health care providers regarding the occurrence of elder neglect and abuse. Therefore the training materials and deliverables will need to be highly researched and need to be reviewed by nonparticipants, who still have a stake in the issue as a preliminary research preparation.

Additionally the quantitative method in general is said to offer participants only limited voice in the hypothesis being tested. The anticipated result of the quantitative process would be to develop a comprehensive (provider/patient) view of the.