Attitudes towards the care of elderly people: are they getting better?

This paper reports findings of research assessing the attitudes of both learner and trained nurses towards the elderly. At the time of the study, all subjects were employed on wards within the care of the elderly unit of a large district general hospital. Assessment of stress perceived on these wards was also made to determine its effect on learner nurses' attitudes towards the elderly. Attitudes of the learner nurses towards the elderly became slightly more negative over their training module. Stress perceptions only correlated with this change to a small extent. Trained staff were also found to be quite neutral in their beliefs about the elderly. The study pointed to the great need for further research into this area so as to prepare the health care services to meet the increasing needs of elderly people. Several implications of the research and more practical considerations are discussed.