Reactions to ageing among Australian psychologists

Attitudes to ageing: an overview of Australian perspectives of health support systems for the older person

OBJECTIVES

Older adults utilise health care systems to a higher frequency than younger groups, and are more vulnerable to system bias regarding ageing and expectations of old age. This narrative review attempts to outline the available literature regarding how various health support systems perceive the older adult, with an Australian focus.

CONCLUSIONS

Perspectives on ageing are generally negative regardless of health industry. Possible contributors to this include elements of death anxiety, inadequate education and inadequate occupational exposure during training.

Attitudes of neurology specialists toward older adults

OBJECTIVE

Attitude of healthcare providers toward older people is very important in the aging world. Neurologists contact older adults very frequently. We aimed to investigate the attitudes of neurologists toward older adults.

MEASUREMENTS

We recorded participants age; sex; duration of clinical practice in neurology; existence of older adult relatives; and history of geriatrics education, nursing home visits, older adult patient density in their clinical practice, and participation in voluntary public activities. UCLA Geriatrics Attitude Scale was used to evaluate participants' attitudes.

RESULTS

A total of 100 neurologists participated in this study. Seventy-seven percent had positive, 3 % had neutral, and 20 % had negative attitudes. Twenty-seven percent of the participants had history of geriatrics education, and these participants tended to have a higher rate of positive attitudes. Neurologists with positive attitudes tended to be older than those with negative attitudes. Participants with history of living with older adult relatives had lower rates of positive attitudes. The most common diagnoses of the patients the participants encountered were stroke and dementia. Independent factors associated with positive attitudes were history of geriatrics education and older age. History of living with older relatives tended to have a negative effect. Most of the negative items of the attitude scale were associated with the natural course and behavior of the common diseases in neurology practice.

CONCLUSIONS

Generalization of geriatrics education may translate into a better understanding and improved care for older patients. Development of instruments and implementation of qualitative studies to assess attitudes of neurologists toward older adults are needed.

Longitudinal assessment of medical student attitudes toward older people

Delivering adequate care to older people requires an increasing number of physicians competent in the treatment of this expanding subpopulation. Attitudes toward older adults are important as predictors of the quality of care of older people and of medical trainee likelihood to enter the geriatrics field. This study assessed the attitudes of 404 US medical students (MS) from the start of medical school to graduation using the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Geriatrics Attitude Scale. It is the first study to utilize a longitudinal design to assess attitudes among students in a medical school with a longitudinal geriatrics clinical experience in the first two years and a required geriatrics clerkship in the third year. Participants' attitude scores toward older people were found to significantly decrease from 3.9 during the first two years to 3.7 during the final two. Significant differences existed between MS1 and MS3, MS1 and MS4, MS2 and MS3, and MS2 and MS4. Women and older students held significantly more positive attitudes than men and younger students. These results show that planned clinical exposures to older adults may not be sufficient to halt the decline in attitudes in medical school. A comprehensive empathy-building intervention embedded in the curriculum may better prevent this decline.