Institutional abuse - Characteristics of victims, perpetrators and organsations: A systematic review.

Background: Abuse of vulnerable adults in institutional settings has been reported from various countries; however, there has been no systematic review of the characteristics of the victims and their abusers. Our aim was to identify and synthesise the literature on victims, perpetrators and institutions where abuse occured in order to inform interventions to prevent such abuse.

Methods: Searches of MEDLINE (OVID), CINHAL (EBSCO), EMBASE (OVID) and PsychINFO (OVID) databases identified 4279 references.