Aim: This study aimed to explore the factors associated with attitudes towards the older adults among nursing students, to clarify the impact of empathy and end-of-life care on the attitude of the older adults, and to provide a basis for the follow-up of education courses related to older adults care and the training of older adults care talents.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey on nursing students' knowledge and attitudes towards older adults was conducted from 24 December 2020-24 February 2021. The Chinese versions of the end-of-life Attitudes Scale, Jefferson Empathy Scale-Nursing Version and Kogan Attitudes Scale for the Elderly were used for this cross-sectional study. We used the purposive sampling method to conduct a questionnaire survey on nursing students at Heilongjiang Nursing College (n = 371, effective response rate: 64.52%).
Results: The average score of FATCOD-B was 99.04 (7.71), and the score of C-JSE-HPS was 100.67 (12.90). The total average score of nursing students' attitudes towards older adults was 139.91 (15.79). The hierarchical regression analysis showed that education (β = -.125, p = .025) and personal experience (β = -.132, p = .008) correlated negatively with attitudes towards the older adults, while the end-of-life care (β = .140, p = .013) and empathy (β = .285, p < .001) correlated positively with attitudes towards the older adults.
Conclusions: Religion, end-of-life care and empathy were positively correlated with nursing students' attitudes towards older adults. It is necessary to set up end-of-life care, empathy and education related to the older adults, and combine a variety of training forms, increasing humanistic assessments and reducing the employment pressure on nursing students by relevant departments can improve their attitudes towards the older adults.
Keywords: ageing; attitude; empathy; end-of-life care; nursing students.
© 2022 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.