Physiotherapy students’ attitudes towards and knowledge of older people

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students' attitudes towards and knowledge of older people changed throughout the physiotherapy undergraduate program. Students' demographic information and attitudes towards and knowledge of older people were gathered via repeated question-responses over three points of time during the 4-year program. Validated instruments--the Geriatric Attitudinal Scale (GAS) and the Facts on Ageing Quiz 1 (FAQ1)--were used to measure participants' attitudes and knowledge of older people. The FAQ1 yielded two variables: knowledge as percentage of FAQ1 correct responses, and ignorance as percentage of FAQ1 Don't Know responses. The instruments were administered in Year 2 prior to the students' first clinical (Time 1), immediately after their first clinical (Time 2), and Year 4 just prior to completion of the program (Time 3). Changes over time were analysed using paired t-tests with significance set at p < 0.05. Participants initially demonstrated positive attitudes towards older people with a mean of 73.8% GAS positive responses with no significant change over time (p = 0.56). Initial knowledge about older people was poor with a mean of 43.6% FAQ1 correct responses which increased significantly over time to 51.7% (p = 0.0001). This improvement in knowledge was accompanied by a decrease in ignorance over the study period (p = 0.0001). While attitudes toward older people were positive and knowledge improved over time, the level of knowledge attained was below expectation for beginning practitioners. This finding has implications for the education and training of physiotherapy students.

Geriatrics education is associated with positive attitudes toward older people in internal medicine residents: A multicenter study

“…The positive effect of geriatrics education on attitudes toward older people has been shown in previous studies regarding medical, nursing, dietetics, and physiotherapy students (Cankurtaran et al, 2006;Chua et al, 2008;Hobbs et al, 2006;Kaempfer et al, 2002;Reuben et al, 1995;Usta et al, 2012). The study of Lee et al (2005) showed that personal experience was a strong predictor of primary care residents' attitudes toward older people.…”

Health professionals' attitudes toward older people and older patients: A systematic review

“…Only two studies reported other healthcare professionals' data with one reporting positive attitudes among physiotherapy students at three different time point in a program (Hobbs, Dean, Higgs, & Adamson, 2006) and another one reporting neutral attitudes of osteopath students (Voogt, Mickus, Santiago, & Herman, 2008) (Table III).…”

Knowledge And Attitude Towards Ageing Among Health Science University Students

“…Moreover, students' knowledge of ageing was greater in those who had taken geriatric modules or courses 25,26 . Similarly, health science students possessed more positive attitudes with geriatric related education 11,14,29 . Clinical hands-on training was also shown to improve knowledge and attitudes towards older adults with severe mental conditions 30 .…”