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Ageism Education Class

ster's level students at a school of nursing and 40 master's level students at a school of social work completed questionnaires containing Palmore's Facts on Aging Quiz (which measures factual knowledge of aging); the Old People Scale, (which measures attitudes toward older people); and Barriers to Teaching Gerontology, (which measures perceptions of the relative importance of a number of barriers to the teaching of geriatrics).

The students correctly answered 64 percent of the items on the Palmore quiz, which the authors referred to as a "disturbing" level of performance. Increased age of respondent was associated with more knowledge of aging.

Attitudes toward old people tended to be neutral, rather than strongly positive or negative. Positive attitudes were related to knowledge of aging and having lived with an elderly person. Based on their findings, Reed et. al (1992) concluded that the knowledge deficits of the sample suggest that there are barriers in students' academic preparation for working effectively with older clients.

Similarly, Downe-Wamboldt and Melanson (1990) assessed the attitudes of 62 nursing students. Results showed that nurses felt socially distant from older people and experienced anxiety in terms of caring from them. Their education had assisted in these feelings and had somewhat improved their attitude. However, the authors felt that ageism definitely existed in the nurse population.

In another study, Fineman (1994) investigated the subjective understandings of old age of health care providers and the implications for threatened status in late life. Data were gathered from in-depth interviews with 42 health care providers (18 nurses and 24 doctors) at a community teaching hospital. Answers to the question "How do you know that someone is old?" were tape-recorded and transcribed. The 21 criteria for assessing old age fell into three major categories: chronological age, poor health status,...

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Ageism Education Class. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:19, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704257.html