国际先进创新、思想和创意杂志

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Assessment of Gullibility of Older Patients is Important for their Safety and Health

Andrzej Brodziak1,2*, Renata Zlotkowska1,3 and Alicja Różyk-Myrta2

Increased gullibility makes a person vulnerable to
manipulations. The gullible people are often victims of
scams or frauds. Scam crimes are a significant problem
in civil justice procedures and criminal
investigations.The repercussion of gullibility can be
especially seen among older people. Elderly people
seem particularly vulnerable to scam .Thus, the
frequency and intensity of gullibility and the ways to
assess this vulnerability are in particular a problem in
the field of geriatric care and in general in care for the
well-being of elderly people .Surprisingly, so far,
almost no scientific studies have been attempted to
assess the degree of dependence between the age of
patients and intensity of gullibility. Also, the factors
that influence the existence of this particular
personality trait have not been examined yet
extensively. The purpose of this short commentary is
therefore to stimulate the investigations, which will
lead to the development of methods detecting increased
gullibility in older people. This will make possible to
include to the principles of care for the elderly the
advices that would reduce the risk of becoming a victim
of deceptions. If it were possible to determine methods
of belittling credulity, it would also improve the quality
of many activities in the field of care for the
elderly.The authors consider the state of contemporary
knowledge related to notation of gullibility and
methods of its assessment. They emphasize that there is
almost no publication on this subject in medical
literature.Increased gullibility makes a person
vulnerable to manipulations. The gullible ie.most
innocent people are often victims of scam. Elderly
people and innocent people are particularly vulnerable
to scam and fraud. Thus, the frequency and intensity of
gullibility and the ways to its assessment are in
particular important in the field of geriatric care.The
authors quote some selected items of the proposed selfreport
measure of gullibility, elaborated recently for
evaluations in general population. They argue that the
assessment of the prevalence of gullibility is important
for the state of public mental health, because
widespread gullibility facilitate manipulations of
members of a community and promotions of xenophobic,
nationalistic attitudes and populist promises. And then
the authors discuss the necessary investigations on the
methods of assessment of gullibility among elderly and
on the spread of this trait of personality in different age
groups of patients. The scale developed by Alessandro
Teunisse is designed to assess the level of gullibility in
the general population. It seems that further research is
needed to develop a scale for testing older people and
elderly patients.The quoted fragment of Teunisse’s scale
allows an approximate assessment of gullibility in the
elderly. Apart from presenting to the patient the quoted
questions, it is possible during conversation with him to
counsel guarding him against the consequences of his
mental state, especially giving him attention to the
abovementioned “ability and motivation to detect cues of
untrustworthiness”. It should be noted that recently the
importance of the assessment of the prevalence of
gullibility for the state of public mental health has been
recognized [9]. In a situation where many citizens are
significantly gullible it is possible to manipulate easily
members of such a community. It is easy then to promote
xenophobic, nationalistic attitudes and populist promises.
Especially the older people are particularly vulnerable to
such manipulations.It seems that a slightly different,
special measurement scale would be needed for the
purpose of studying the relationship between the
prevalence of the above-mentioned social attitudes and
the level of gullibility. One should also consider
differences in the meaning of similar notions such as
credulity and naiveté. The mean level of gullibility is
also important for the quality of the results of all
teaching programs. Good learning outcomes can only be
achieved if the criticism of thinking is a feature
considered as valuable .The issue of credulity and the
methods of its evaluation should be known to people
involved in health care of the elderly, because older
people are in particular vulnerable to scam and fraud. If a
significant number of people in a certain community is
gullible, then promoting of xenophobic, nationalist
attitudes by people promoting the populist program it’s
easier. The public mental health is then impaired.Good