A Study of Medical and Non-Medical College Students’ Knowledge andAttitudes toward Older People in a University in Southern Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chih-Tu Lin, 林志都
• Other Authors: Li-Fan Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76943520986935709195

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 老年學研究所 === 97 === By the end of March, 2009, the percentage of agig population in Taiwan has risen to over 10.4%. As the population ages quickly, research related to elderly people becomes more and more important nowadays. The knowledge and attitudes of the college students, who are about to start working in a few years, will affect how they face a graying occupational environment. And this issue will become even more important for the future medical professionals, since it may affect theirtherapeutic strategies towards their elderly patients, as well as the allocation of medical resources.But there are very few studies concerning to college tudents’ knowledge and attitudes towards elderly people in Taiwan. This research’s objective is to investigate the degree of college students’(both medical students and non-medical ones) knowledge about and attitudes towards elderly people, their willingness to work with elder people, and the factors which affect these knowledge and attitudes. This research applies a convenience sampling method, and has as samples all medical students in a university in Southern Taiwan, as well as a group of non-medical students, of similar number to those medical students. These students’ knowledge and attitudes towards the elder people are investigated using structured questionnaires. The knowledge about elders is investigated using Palmore’s Facts on Aging Quiz 1, and for the general attitude towards elder people, Polizzi’s revised version of Aging Semantic Differential is applied. In order to investigate the geriatrics attitudes, this research uses the UCLA Geriatrics Attitudes Scale. 540 effective questionnaires were recovered, which is 85.2% of the total amount of questionnaires administered. 299 of the questionnaires are from medical students and 241 of them from non-medical ones. After statistics analysis with tools like independent t-test, Fisher’s exact probability test, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Wald Chi-Square test, logistic and linear regression, this research finds out that the college students have a moderate level of knowledge on the elderly people, with a mean score of 53.30, which is lower than the result of similar researcheswith medical students in the US in recent years. As to the general attitudes towards elderly people,the subjects in question have a slightly positive attitude (mean score of each question=3.33) , which is better then the results of recent researches in the US and in Spain,that demonstrated negative attitudes among college students (both medical and non-medical) towards elderly people. But when it comes to geriatrics attitudes, though the tested medical students have a slightly positive attitude (mean score for each question= 3.39), the score is lower than the results of similar research in the UK, US and Singapore, which range from a mean score of 3.58 to 3.9. College students in this research also prove to have negative images or erroneous stereotype about elderly people: while the male students stress on the mental and physical deterioration of elderly people such like “lack of interest of capability in sexual activities, too slow for modern society, less organized and more confused, despairing”, the female students focus more on the character stereotyping: “angry, crabby,unfair, pessimistic”. There is a positive correlation among college students’knowledge about elderly people and their general and geriatric attitudes towards elderly people, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.270 and 0.269 respectively; while there is also a positive correlation between their general attitudes and geriatrics attitudes, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.315. Having or not background of medical education has no relation with college students’s knowledge about and attitudes towards elderly people: there is no statistical relevance between medical and non-medical students’ knowledge and attitude (p<0.05). Meanwhile, there is no statistical difference between the knowledge level of senior medical students and junior ones (p=0.448); but in both general and geriatrics attitudes, senior medical students have a statistically more negative attitude than junior ones (p<0.05). The most important factors affecting college students’ willingness of choosing a job related to working with elderly people, are their grades in their attitudes scales and the age group for the medical students. Higher mean scores in the attitudes scales and medical students of 20 to 24 years old, are associated with higher possibility of choosing a job related to working with elder people. The factors which affect college student’s knowledge level about elderly people are the “Family structure”, “Interaction with grandparents” and “Overall perception about interaction with elderly people” (p<0.05, adjusted R squared=0.050). The students who live with their grandparent have the lowest scores in the knowledge scale, while students of other family structures score significantly higher. “Frequent interaction with” and “Daily visit or phonecalls to” grandparents, and feeling “Nothing special”,“Not bad”or“Good”about interaction with elderly people are associated with higher scores in the knowledge scale. The factors affecting college students’ general attitude towards elderly people are: “Gender”, “Family structure”,“Interaction with grandparents” and “Overall perception about interaction with elderly people”(p<0.05, adjusted R squared= 0.166). Female students have lower scores than male ones (p=0.008). The students who live with their grandparent have the lowest scores in the general attitude scale. Those who have more frequent interaction with their grandparents, have a higher general attitude score (p=0.033~0.010). Those who perceive their interaction with elderly people as positive or neutral, have higher scores in general attitude scale than those who rank their interaction as “Not comfortable”, with statistical relevance (p<0.05). The factors affecting geriatrics attitudes towards elderly people are “Groups”, “Gender”, “Having or not experience taking care of elderly people”, “Interaction with grandparents” and “Overall perception about interaction with elderly people”(p<0.05, adjusted R squared=0.153). Senior medical students and those whose grandparents have deceased or who do not have experience taking care of elderly people are associated with lower geriatrics attitudes score (p=0.026, 0.047 and 0.024 respectively), while female students (p=0.007), quite frequent interaction with grandparents (p=0.045), and those who perceive their interaction with elderly people as “Not bad” (p=0.041) or “Good” (p=0.027), have higher geriactrics attitude score. This research demonstrates that despite of their socio-demographic difference, there is no statistical difference among college students concerning to their scores in knowledge and attitude scales. This proves that, as a cohort of similar age groups, they share similar cognition and feelings about elderly people. Related literatures have demonstrated that through constant information and education, the knowledge level about elderly people can be improved, as well as the attitude towards them. Therefore, adding more courses related to the elderly population in the college as well as in the medical education, should be able to improve effectively college students’ knowledge about and attitude toward elderly people, preparing them for a increasingly aging society, as well as increase their willingness to choose jobs related to working with elderly people.