Hsu Pei-Ti, Ho Ya-Fang, Chen Jeu-Jung
Department of Nursing, Ching Kuo Institute of Management and Health, Keelung 20301, Taiwan.
School of Nursing, China Medical University, Taichung 406040, Taiwan.
Healthcare (Basel). 2022 Mar 31;10(4):652. doi: 10.3390/healthcare10040652.
With the rapid increase in the aging population, a greater number of older individuals will require nursing care in the future. Therefore, it is important for nurses to be willing to engage in gerontological nursing. Nursing students must increase their experience in providing care to older people during their education and must receive education that improves their attitudes toward aging; this will help provide care to the older people, develop positive attitudes toward aging, and increase their empathy and willingness to provide care to older people after graduation. Hence, studies focused on improving the attitude of nursing students toward aging are urgently required.
In this mixed-method experimental study, participants were interviewed individually and observed to better understand the connection between quantitative and qualitative data. Service learning and learning portfolio constructions were integrated in the gerontological nursing curriculum of an experimental group, whereas traditional gerontological nursing curriculum was provided to a control group. Quantitative data on the nursing students were collected using the attitudes toward aging scale (ATAS) and older people behavioral intention scale (OBIS) and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
From the pre- to the post-test, the average ATAS and OBIS scores of the experimental group increased significantly, reaching a statistically significant level. However, the results of the control group indicated that the educational intervention does affect the attitudes toward aging and older people behaviors. A qualitative analysis revealed that educational intervention can improve the students' attitudes toward aging and older people behavioral intention.
Our study results showed that integrating community older people service and learning portfolio construction into the curriculum can effectively improve the attitudes of nursing students toward aging and older people's behaviors, thus providing substantial assistance to students intending to care for the older people in the future.
随着老龄化人口的迅速增加，未来将有更多老年人需要护理服务。因此，护士愿意从事老年护理工作非常重要。护理专业学生在学习期间必须增加照顾老年人的经验，并接受能改善他们对衰老态度的教育；这将有助于为老年人提供护理服务，培养对衰老的积极态度，并增强他们毕业后照顾老年人的同理心和意愿。因此，迫切需要开展专注于改善护理专业学生对衰老态度的研究。
在这项混合方法的实验研究中，对参与者进行了个体访谈和观察，以更好地理解定量和定性数据之间的联系。实验组将服务学习和学习档案袋构建整合到老年护理课程中，而对照组则采用传统的老年护理课程。使用衰老态度量表（ATAS）和老年人行为意向量表（OBIS）收集护理专业学生的定量数据，并使用描述性和推断性统计方法进行分析。
从测试前到测试后，实验组的平均ATAS和OBIS得分显著提高，达到统计学显著水平。然而，对照组的结果表明，教育干预确实会影响对衰老的态度和对老年人的行为。定性分析表明，教育干预可以改善学生对衰老的态度和对老年人的行为意图。
我们的研究结果表明，将社区老年人服务和学习档案袋构建整合到课程中，可以有效改善护理专业学生对衰老的态度和对老年人的行为，从而为未来有意照顾老年人的学生提供实质性帮助。
