Attitudes of nursing students towards older people in Turkey

Introduction: The attitudes of nurses towards older people in school period to be the important part of health team affect the work performance and the field of study after graduation. Therefore, this study was applied to define the attitudes of nurses towards older people and the relation of these attitudes with the experience of the students regarding older people and some demographic variables. Methods: This study consisting of descriptive sectional type was implemented with 192 students that study in Sinop University, School of Nursing in 2010-2011 education year. Student description form that was prepared with the guidance of literature and the scale of Kogan's Attitudes Towards Older People (KAOP) were used as the data collection tools. Results: The score rates that the students acquired by joining the research from the attitude scale towards older people are between 45-204 and the average score rate has been detected as 121.56 +/- 13.60. Significant difference has not been found out among the scores the students obtained from the scale according to age, class, place of living and hometown (p>0.05). The students not having older people in their family had a more positive attitude towards older people than the ones having older people in their families and this difference was found out significant statistically (p<0.05). Conclusion: Consequently, with the attitudes of nursing students towards older people are slightly positive, taking place of geriatry subject more on the educational period will contribute to develop health of older people and improve more of positive attitudes.