Knowledge of Aging and Attitudes Toward Older People

Abstract

Podiatric medical students in Australia were surveyed to evaluate their reasons for entering podiatric medicine, knowledge of aging, attitudes toward older people, perceptions of treatment efficacy, and desire to specialize in geriatrics. Few students plan to specialize in geriatrics upon graduation (4%), with most preferring general practice (25%) or sports medicine (21%). However, knowledge of aging was good, and students had favorable attitudes toward older people and considered treatment of older people to be effective. Few age- or gender-related effects were observed. It is concluded that students' lack of desire to specialize in geriatrics may be due not to unfavorable perceptions of older people but rather to the low profile and limited development of geriatrics as a specialty area within the podiatric medical profession.

Factors related to medical students’ and doctors’ attitudes towards older patients: a systematic review

“…(2005) [ 26 ] 177 Doctors, USA UCLA GAS [ 35 ]: Range 1(neg) to 5(pos) PGY1 = 3.5; PGY2 = 3.7; PGY3 = 3.6; Medium Leung et al (2011) [ 27 ] 122 Doctors, Australia Fraboni's Ageism Scale [59]: Range 29(pos) to 145(neg) 61.5 Medium Linn and Zeppa (1988) [28] 179 3 MS, USA Kogan's ATOP [ 48 ]: Range 1(neg) to 4(pos) 2.1 Medium Lui and Wong (2009) [29] 54 Doctors, Singapore Kogan's ATOP [ 48 ]: Range 34(neg) to 170(pos) 114.4 Low Maxwell and Sullivan (1980) [ 30 ] 150 Doctors, USA Maxwell–Sullivan Scale [ 30 ]: Range 1(pos) to 5(neg) 2.2 Low Menz et al . (2003) [ 31 ] 81 3 MS and 4 MS, Australia ASD [ 47 ]: Range 32(pos) to 224(neg) Chumbler measure Effectiveness [ 13 ]: Range 4(pos) to 28(neg) ASD = 120.0; effectiveness scale = 18.6 Low Muangpaisan et al . (2008) [32] 60 Doctors; 146 4 MS, Thailand UCLA GAS [ 35 ]: Range 16(pos) to 80(neg) 4 MS = 41.8; Doctors = 40.7 Low Perrotta et al (1981) [33] 127 1 MS, USA Kogan's ATOP [ 48 ]: Range 34(pos) to 170(neg) 81.0 Medium Reuben ...…”

“…Typically, studies failed to provide details of a power calculation to justify the size of the sample. Eight studies used very small samples of <100 participants [ 8 , 16, 29, 31 , 32, 36 , 38, 39], which can be expected to have weak power to detect relationships [ 45 ] and thus indicated low quality. Using the STROBE checklist to evaluate quality, the main weaknesses across studies related to response rates, sample size and the instrument employed.…”

“…Using the STROBE checklist to evaluate quality, the main weaknesses across studies related to response rates, sample size and the instrument employed. Eight studies also had unreported or low response rates (<40%) which was considered an indicator of low quality [15, 23, 30 , 31 , 35 , 37 , 39, 40 ]. Five studies were considered high quality as they had reported over 65% response rates, had over 250 participants (which has been identified as a point at which correlations stabilise [46]) and used a measure which had reliability or validity evidence based on samples with healthcare professionals [ 10 , 13 , 14 , 34 , 43 ].…”

“…A total of 28 studies examined the link between gender and attitudes, and 18 reported no evidence of a relationship [ 8 –12, 16–19, 22, 24, 32, 35 , 39, 41 –44]. All 10 studies which found a relationship reported that female respondents had more positive attitudes than male respondents [ 13 –15, 18, 21 , 27 , 31 , 34 , 37 , 43 ]. All five high quality studies in this review investigated the relationship between gender and attitudes with four of these studies reporting more positive attitude scores for females.…”

“…Ten studies investigated the relationship between respondents’ personal contact with older people (including older relatives) and attitude scores, and the results were mixed. Five studies reported no significant relationship between variables [ 10 , 17, 31 , 33, 36 ]; these studies all posed questions pertaining to the frequency of contact with older people. The remaining five studies did report associations [ 26 , 27 , 32, 41 , 42 ] and these all posed questions relating to the quality of the relationship with the older person.…”