Nursing Student Attitudes

Experience is an important factor which influences the attitude of nursing students toward older people. A study done on subjects in Norway and United States, “Nursing students had a positive attitude towards the elderly.” (Mc Cracker, 1995). Although these studies are old, we used it to draw a comparison from very old studies to more current studies to note the consistency, fill any gaps between 1995 and 2014 and they were the only articles on positive attitudes possessed by nursing students towards older adults. Their positive attitudes were contrary to how they perceived their respective societies to view older adults. “Close contact with grandparents and the number clinical hours spent with the elderly can influence students attitudes towards

(2000), “Nursing students with little or no previous experience of clinical nursing had more unfavorable attitudes toward older people than the fourth-year nursing students, who were at the end of their education and had both theoretical and clinical experiences from various specialties.” Older persons usually need care from health care providers in their homes or in specialized care settings if their health deteriorates with advanced age. In a Sweden study conducted by it was found that “Age, gender and experience were factors that influenced attitude toward older people in the studied groups of nursing students and registered nurses.” (Söderhamn, et al, 2000). The result of the study revealed, “Older nursing students were more favorable toward older people than the students who were younger than 25 years.” (Söderhamn, et al, 2000). Several international studies have established that older age groups of nursing students show more optimistic attitudes towards older people than younger nursing students do.

Williams, Anderson, and Day (2007) stated, “Nursing student display positive attitudes towards the elderly and this influence the nursing care given to the elderly. The care for the elderly given by nursing students in their final year can be influence by the level of knowledge in gerontology and also personal experience with these individuals

Researcher used the following instruments to gather data from the sample: “Kogan’s attitude towards old people scale (contains 17 pairs statements related to the elderly. Options such as: strongly disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, agree or strongly agree were place at the end of each statement; subjects were asked to select one), visual analogue scale (a 100 millimetres line placed beside each option and subjects were ask to make a X to correspond with the number of the elderly person in the past with whom they had experience (except in their nursing education), a request for a descriptive paragraphs and demographic data questions.” (Mc Cracker, 1995).While comparing nursing students with the above mentioned tools, the results were similar and the attitude of nursing students towards the elderly is solely dependent on these variables: level of educational program, past family experiences, number of past experience, the amount of lecture time spent earning about the elderly and the amount of clinical time spent with the elderly. Researchers choose to gather their information from their subjects with a quantitative or both qualitative and quantitative approaches (triangulation). “Quantitative approach involves numerical representation, while qualitative is mostly subjective and getting feedback from samples. Hence, triangulation is the use of both