Äldre kvinnors våldsutsatthet : En kvalitativ studie om socialtjänstens arbete med mäns våld mot äldre kvinnor i nära relation

Sammanfattning: From an intersectional perspective, we examine how the vulnerability of older women to intimate partner violence is adressed in the social service´s governing documents and in professional´s description of their work. To fulfill this objective and best formulate our study, we have chosen to combine two qualitative methods, document analysis with an interview study. Older women and their vulnerability to intimate partner violence are largely invisible in both research, policy documents and in the descriptions of the professional social work with intimate partner violence in older women. The lack of standard definitions and unifromity in research makes it difficult to get a comprehensive picture of the problem´s prevalence and its meaning. It also means that the professionals can not acquire sufficient knowledge, feeling thet they have lack of knowledge on the subject. Overall, our conclusion is that the social work with older women´s vulnerability to initmate partner violence is almost invisible. Which means that there is probably a large unknown number of older women who are exposed to violence in a close relationship.