Research Article
Sukhpal Kaur, Anoop Kumar K
Abstract
There is proportionate increase in the health problems along with increase in elderly population in India. Nurses need to be well equipped with knowledge and should also have a positive attitude regarding elderly care. The current cross sectional study was undertaken with an objective to assess the knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding care of elderly. Using purposive sampling technique, 267 undergraduate nursing students were enrolled in the study. A pre validated self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding elderly care. The knowledge questionnaire consisted of 28 multiple choice questions with one right answer. Total score was further categorized as poor, average and good as per the score obtained by the subjects. The attitude was assessed on a Likert five-point scale, ranged from ‘strongly agree’ with 5 score to ‘strongly disagree’ with 1 score. It consisted of 16 items. The total score was further categorized as unfavorable, neutral and favorable attitude as per the scores obtained. Majority (95.5%) of the subjects were females. Mean age (yrs) ± SD was 22.61 ± 3.31 with the range of 19-48 yrs. More than half (53.9) were from urban locality. Only 29.2% were staying with the grandparents. Mean knowledge score ± S.D. was 22.10 ± 2.91, with the range of 9-27. Around two third (76.4) were in the good category of knowledge score. Mean attitude score ± S.D. was 60.38 ± 8.95 with the range of 22-78. 64.6% were in the positive category of attitude. Knowledge and attitude were positively correlated.