Attitudes of Nursing Students toward Elderly People

Lee, Sook-Hee

doi:2014.16.1.18

J Korean Gerontol Nurs > Volume 16(1):2014 > Article

Original Article


J Korean Gerontol Nurs. 2014 Apr;16(1):18-26. Korean. Published online Apr 30, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.17079/jkgn.2014.16.1.18
© 2014 Korean Gerontological Nursing Society


Attitudes of Nursing Students toward Elderly People
Sook-Hee Lee^*
Department of Nursing, Seoyeong University, Gwangju, Korea.
^*Corresponding author: Lee, Sook-Hee. Department of Nursing, Seoyeong University, 1 Seokang-ro, Buk-Gu, Gwangju 500-742, Korea. Tel: +82-62-520-5086, Fax: +82-62-520-5178, Email: shlee45@seoyeong.ac.kr

Received October 17, 2013; Revised December 13, 2013; Accepted February 15, 2014.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of nursing students toward elderly people. Methods The study participants were 286 nursing students from a nursing college who consented to participate in this study. A form containing demographic characteristics of participants and Kogan's Attitudes toward Old People Scale (KAOPS) were used to gather the required data. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA. Results Nursing students in this study reported neutral attitudes (121.52±12.63) compared to positive attitudes of Western nursing students in previous studies. Nine out of 17 negative items had higher mean scores than positive items. Statistically significant differences were found associated with experience feeling of living with elderly people and care for elderly people. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that nursing education should be directed at changing nursing students' attitudes toward older people. Experience of exposure to well-older people may be helpful to promote nursing students' positive attitudes toward elderly people. There is a need to further test the validity and reliability of the KAOPS for use with various populations in Korea.

Keywords: Aged, Attitude.

Tables


	Table 1 General Characteristics of Participants (N=286)


	Table 2 Score for Attitudes toward Older People according to Items of the Scale (N=286)


	Table 3 Score for Attitudes toward Older People according to Characteristics (N=286)

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