5.5.
Summary and discussion
This part of the project, the experts’ questionnaire can be just partly called suc-cessful in Hungary. It has been again proved what other sociological research studies have demonstrated that use of self-completion questionnaires in Hun-gary is not expedient. Completing a questionnaire independently causes difficul-ties to and by all means evokes antipathy in many people. Therefore, if a similar kind of investigation is made in the future, it must be prepared more profoundly, possibly by involving the supervisory authorities of institutions.
It was also due to low degree of sensitivity to the topic that only one-fourth of questionnaires sent out were returned. When we asked the institutions that had not returned the questionnaire for the second time to fill in at least the opinion questions and the questions regarding the institution even if they had no cases, we were often given the reply orally that they considered the topic uninterest-ing, unimportant. For this reason they feel the completion of the questionnaire is a kind of waste of time. In better cases, they underlined another form of vi-olence from their practice as a more important subject more suitable for re-search (e.g. violence of elderly persons by their children, grandchildren). In worse cases, they judged the entire topic of violence within the family unimpor-tant.
Only 11 respondents indicated that the issue was important to them and they would undertake an interview too. This number is far from the figure we ex-pected. Furthermore, not all respondents who undertook the interview had case experience (see: the chapter on interviews for more details), and many respon-dent with case knowledge did not undertake the interview. So, interest in the topic arises from the personal knowledge of the expert completing the question-naire rather than from the experience of the institution. Therefore, generating sensitivity to the topic is one of the most important tasks in Hungary.
The use of two kinds of questionnaires has brought no benefit to us. The short questionnaire did not motivate any better to complete it. It occurred that an
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institution asked for a long questionnaire but eventually did not complete it. The lesson learned from this study is that in similar researches in the future we must use one kind of questionnaire because the short questionnaire will result in loss of information.
The two kinds of questionnaires, deficiencies in collecting data and indifference to the topic have jointly resulted in that we have obtained rather different data regarding the number of elderly female IPV victims. In addition to the aggregat-ing data, the family relation of the perpetrator with the victim is the most prop-erly documented question. Due to lack of data or for other reasons, about rela-tively few victims do we learn of information such as forms or character of vi-olence. Based on the data available to us, the institutions – where it is docu-mented – met mostly with cases where physical-spiritual-financial violence goes together. The overall majority of violence was unilateral, recurrent, long-lasting and commencing before the age of 60. Consequently, experts working in prac-tice did not support the view extensively held in Hungary that IPV is a mutual, ad hoc and accidentally occurring form of family conflict, which inflicts men just as much as women.
Unfortunately, we have received little information as to how the institutions got into contact with victims and what services they provided for them. It was most-ly domestic violence service type institutions that provided several kinds of ser-vices: primarily psycho-social support, legal advice and crisis intervention. Due to low-key information supplied on services, it would be difficult to make pro-posals on improving services. Yet, we can state that the experts of organizations dealing with violence are the most prepared and the most suitable for providing help; therefore, improvement of these institutions and increasing the number of experts would be of key importance. Regarding the improvement of services, it is expedient for Hungary to use the experience of the other countries that take part in the project.
The group that considers the topic less important constituted a minority, yet appeared among the respondents (27.8 %). Presumably, this view is more wide-ly held among those who have not returned the questionnaire. A part of the experts assert that relationships of the elderly do not contain any element of violence; others consider the abusive role of other family members more impor-tant. As our research was not a prevalence study, it would be difficult to con-vince those skeptical about the topic by data. Presentation of cases might have some kind of convincing force to them.
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In summary: we think that sending out questionnaires and processing responses have brought some results. The most important is the fact that experts’ atten-tion has been driven to this issue. It can be hoped that the instituatten-tions that have so far not dealt with this issue at all will pay somewhat more attention to this topic in the future.