Phase II Local Field Staff Interview

PHASE II: APS Local Staff (Supervisors, Investigators, Caseworkers, etc.) Interview Questions
Public Burden Statement: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required
to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number
(OMB 0985-0067). Public reporting burden for this collection of information averages and estimate of
0.75 hours per response, including time for gathering, maintaining the data, completing, and reviewing
the collection of information. The obligation to respond to this collection is voluntary. Send comments
regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including
suggestions for reducing this burden, to the Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 330 C Street, SW, Washington, DC 20201-0008, Attention Stephanie
Whittier Eliason, or email [email protected].

Interviewee Names: ___________________________________________________________________
Titles: ______________________________________________________________________________
State: ___________________________________________
Date of interview: _________________________________

Greeting: Hello, My name is xxx. I am part of a study team that was contracted by the Administration for
Community Living under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We are conducting a
study of how opioid misuse affects older adults as well as APS in its attempts to help them.
The purpose of this interview is to understand your perspectives concerning cases involving opioids. We
are conducting these interviews at the local level in several states to get a better sense of opioid cases and
how they are being handled. This interview should take about 45 minutes.
During the interview, I will refer to the word “abuse” by surrogate decision makers and by this, I mean
any types of abuse, neglect or exploitation of a victim by another person, that your agency investigates.
I’m just using “abuse” for short.
First, I will be asking you to reflect on investigations where opioids were involved. Then, I will ask you
about the particular issues regarding these cases. After that I will come back to issues of how APS
agencies can best assist victims of abuse where opioids are concerned.
With your permission, our conversation will be tape recorded so that we will be able to capture correctly
your input and ideas. Is that all right with you?
I expect you would be careful about this anyway, but, once we turn the recording on as we discuss, let’s
avoid referring to anyone by name, be it the victim or any other individual.
If any of my questions are unclear to you, please stop me and ask for clarification.

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1. Roughly, how many cases of abuse involving opioids would you say that you have handled in the
past year?
Probe: suggest they just identify whether it is probably less than five, five to 10, or over 10?
2. How were these clients in these cases harmed by the abuse/neglect/exploitation that involved
opioids?
Probe: Did you see any particular harm most common in opioid cases? Less common?
2a. Were there any cases where harm was impacted by COVID-19?
3. What were the long-term impact of the abuse/neglect/exploitation on the clients?
4. Did the clients or the perpetrators ever have other allegations of abuse/neglect/exploitation?
Probe: ask for specifics of allegations/substantiations
5. What were the challenges, if any, that you encountered in investigating the allegations of abuse of
these particular clients?
5a. Were any of these challenges impacted by COVID-19?
6. Was your APS program able to provide any intervention(s) that assisted these clients to achieve
increased safety and relief from continued abuse?
6a. If yes, please describe intervention(s) provided and specifically how intervention(s) assisted the
victims.
Probe: Did this enable the victims to become safe? Please explain.
6b. If no, what barriers blocked efforts to assist the victims? Any barriers specific to COVID-19?
7.

Do you have any thoughts or observations from these cases about what might have prevented the
abuse/neglect/exploitation by the perpetrators from occurring?

8.

Overall, do you find that substantiated cases of abuse involving opioids are generally more, less, or
equally as difficult to work as other types of allegations?
Probes: Why?
8a. What impact did COVID-19 have?

9.

Is it easier or harder to substantiate these cases?
Probes: Why?

10. Do you find that intervening and achieving a positive outcome is harder for these cases?
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Probes: Why?
10a. Was it harder during COVID-19? Why?
11. When opioids are involved, is abuse, neglect, or exploitation easier to miss than abuse, neglect, or
exploitation when opioids are not involved?
Probe: Why? In what ways?
11a. Was it easier to miss during COVID-19? Why?
12. Based on your experience working these cases, are there ways that APS and other agencies should
be handling them differently when opioids are involved?
13. In your experience, what are ways to improve prevention of the abuse of older people when opioids
are involved?
14. Do you have recommendations regarding how suspected victims of abuse involving opioids can be
better served or how these cases can be better handled?
15. Are there any other comments you would like to make about cases involving opioids?
16. Do you have any recommendations for further research on abuse involving opioids?

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