Attitudes Towards the Elderly Among Medical Students and Related Factors

BACKGROUND/AIMS: this study aimed to determine the attitudes towards elderly people and related factors among medical students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The population of this cross-sectional study consisted of 385 students in the fourth, fifth and sixth classes studying at a medical school. The questionnaire consisted of sociodemographic characteristics, the Kogan's Attitude Toward Old People Scale and the Beck Hopelessness Scale. For the analysis of the data, difference between two means, variance test, Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman Correlation Analysis was used. For statistical significance, p<0.05 was accepted. RESULTS: The study was conducted with 324 people, the mean age was 23.3 +/- 1.4 years, 34.6% was in fourth, 32.7% was in fifth, 32.7% was in the sixth year and 55.7% was female. The mean attitude score toward the elderly was 100.7 +/- 14.4. The median value of KOGAN was higher in women than in men (p=0.004). There was a negative correlation (r=-0.251, p<0.001) between KOGAN and the hopelessness scores. KOGAN score of those who had a history of living with an elderly individual in a period of their life was 102.4 +/- 13.4, while it was 99.9 +/- 14.8 for others. It was 102.1 +/- 13.0 for those with a history of caring for a bed-dependent elderly person, and 100.7 +/- 14.4 for others (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Applications to be made to integrate medical students and elderly people and intensification of elderly care education will be effective in developing positive attitude among young people.