Background: Student nurses often have a negative attitude towards older patients due to negative stereotypes, which may explain their reluctance to work in geriatric care.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate a dual effect (direct and indirect via anxiety) of patients' age on student nurses' attitudes towards their patients.
Design: Quantitative survey study with 2 between-subjects conditions (patient age: young patients vs. older patients; both n's=52).
Setting: Two schools for higher vocational education in the Netherlands.
Participants: 104 student nurses between the ages of 16-30 in the third or fourth year of their nursing education (Mage=21.58, SD=2.22; 93 women).
Results: Attitudes towards older patients were more negative than those towards young patients. Older patients also elicited less anxiety compared to young patients, and anxiety had a weaker relationship with attitudes towards older patients than attitudes towards younger patients. Attitudes towards younger patients, but not towards older patients, were depressed by anxiety.
Conclusions: Older patients generate more negative attitudes among student nurses, but can also improve attitudes indirectly by lowering intergroup anxiety. Older people may be therefore be especially suitable as a patient group to receive care from young nurses in training, who can mature in their profession without being anxious over making a wrong impression.
Keywords: Anxiety; Geriatric care; Nurse education; Student nurses.
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