Abstract:

Background: Ageism is an important problem which effects care quality in health care. Objective: The study was conducted to determine the attitudes of nursing students towards ageism.Methods: This descriptive study was conducted with 344 students in the department of nursing in the education year of 2015-2016. Tha data were gathered using Ageism Attitude Scale and questionnaire form designed by the researcher. For the assessment of the data; percentages, means, standart deviations,t test for the independent groups, Mann-Whitney U test, Oneway ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis Variance Analysis tests were used. Results: It was found that the mean total Ageism Attitude Scale score of students was 87.28 ± 4.65 and attitudes of them towards ageism were positive. It was noted that mean score for restricting life of the elderly of the students who were living with elderly in their family and who lived/living with grandmother and grandfather was higher (p = .025, p = .016). Also, it was noted that the mean score for positive ageism of the students whose mothers’ were nurses was higher (p = .029). Conclusion: The attitudes of students towards ageism was found positive. It is thought that concentrating to topics related to old age and improving the interaction between elderly and students will be beneficial for doing students’ attitudes more positive.

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