EDUCATIONAL FOLDER AS A STRATEGY FOR HEALTH EDUCATION IN THE PREVENTION OF ELDERLY CRUELTY

Violence against the elderly is considered a public health problem, as it causes harm to the health of victims, such as agitation, fatigue, insomnia, fear, depression, psychosomatic illnesses, physical trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and increased morbidity and mortality. Most elderly people do not report the aggressions they suffer due to the repression that may occur on the part of the aggressor, who is most often their own caregiver. In this context, it is important to implement awareness strategies, such as educational actions, that seek to prevent abuse against the elderly. This study aimed to describe the creation and production process of an informational pamphlet on the topic of “elderly abuse”, with the intention of using it in health promotion activities with institutionalized elderly people. This is a descriptive, non-experimental study, of the experience report type, as it points to the process of construction of an educational instrument, more precisely, an educational pamphlet. The educational material was composed of publications from the SciELO, Virtual Health Library (VHL), MEDLINE, Google Scholar databases, and websites of international and national government organizations. The graphic design and layout were done using Microsoft Word®, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Canva®. The text was composed using “Arial” font, size 14, black, lowercase, and line spacing of 1.4. Regarding the structure, the folder model proposed here was divided into three folds, formatted for A4 paper, horizontal orientation, and was folded according to the sequence of arguments. Side 1 of the folder consisted of the cover, with the image of an elderly woman and the title: Elder abuse – risk factors and violence in old age. The rest of the folder was structured in a topic format, starting with the item “what is elderly abuse”, followed by the themes “types of violence”, “risk factors” and “be aware of signs of abuse”. Each topic contained information related to the titles, which were described in a simple, didactic and informal manner. In addition to the aforementioned subjects, support networks for the protection of the elderly and data related to bibliographic references and the institutions involved in the creation of the folder were added. The folder presented current and relevant content and can be used by family members, caregivers and health professionals. Its characteristics include: textual simplicity, objective information and clear language that is easy for the target audience to understand. These attributes are in line with the literature researched.