Attitudes toward and willingness to work with older people and its predicting factor among medical science students in Iran
ISSN: 1366-3666
Article publication date: 16 March 2022
Issue publication date: 28 November 2022
Abstract
Purpose
As the aging population increases steadily, the demands for specialized nurses and geriatricians willing to work in geriatric settings will probably explode. Accordingly, the medical sciences students’ attitude toward older adults and their willingness to work with them must be determined. This study aims to determine the medical sciences students’ attitude toward older people and its relationship with their willingness to work with this population. In addition, it sought to determine the variables that could predict students’ attitudes toward the elderly.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional design using a stratified random sampling method was used to recruit a sample of 305 Iranian medical sciences students with a response rate of 97.4%. The instruments for data collection were composed of three parts: socio-demographic characteristics of participants, Kogan’s Attitudes toward Old People Scale and the Willingness to Work with Elderly People Scale (WEPS). Data were analyzed in SPSS version 23 (IBM SPSS statistics 23.0).
Findings
The participants’ mean (SD) age was 22.95 (2.53). Most of them (69%) were women, and 51% were nursing students. The findings showed that 70% of students had a slightly positive attitude toward the elderly and only 12.8% of them declared geriatric setting as their workplace preference in the future. Experience of volunteering activities with elders, WEPS score, workplace preference after graduation and gender were the predictors of medical science students’ attitudes toward the elderly.
Originality/value
This paper further develops previous research on the attitudes of Iranian medical sciences students toward older adults.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was a research project supported by Vice Chancellor for Research and Technology Affairs, Ilam University of Medical Sciences. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the medical science students who participated in the study.Conflict of interest: The researchers claim no conflicts of interest.
Citation
Rashidi, F. and Azadi, A. (2022), "Attitudes toward and willingness to work with older people and its predicting factor among medical science students in Iran", Working with Older People, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 397-406. https://doi.org/10.1108/WWOP-11-2021-0054
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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