Nurse teachers’ and student nurses’ attitudes towards caring the older people in a province of Greece

Background: Few studies have attempted to examine nurse teachers’ attitudes toward older people. Attitudes towards the older people are considered as an important factor in their care. The aim of this study was to examine the attitudes of nursing students and their teachers towards the older people. Material and Method: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the Nursing Department, at the Technological Educational Institute of Central Greece. For this purpose a 20–item questionnaire was filled in by 246 of first, fourth and fifth semester students and by 76 nurse teachers. The non-parametric Mann–Whitney–U test was used for the comparison between the two independent groups, the ordinal data were examined through the non-parametric KruskallWallis H test and t–test was performed to compare the mean total score between the two groups. Results: Students score better than teachers (mean score 57.65 vs. 55.78, p=0.011). Teachers and women had in general more positive attitudes (p<0.05). However, lack of knowledge and interest in the issue of older people care was traced. There is a considerable shift in students’ attitudes toward caring older people from the first to third year of the academic course (p<0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated that young students, especially males as a “target group’’ for educational intervention, because the better the knowledge, the better the clinical outcome in the flied of older people care.