Knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding care of elderly: An Indian perspective

International Conference on Nursing & Emergency Medicine

December 02-04, 2013 Hampton Inn Tropicana, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Sukhpal Kaur, Bhawna Rani, Anoop Kumar, Baljeet Kaur, Sandhya Ghai and Monaliza

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

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 questionnaire was a five points scale i.e. 5: strongly agree, 4: agree, 3: neither agrees nor disagrees, 2: disagree, and 1: strongly disagree. It consisted of 16 items. The total score was further categorized as unfavourable, neutral and favourable 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.

Biography :

Sukhpal Kaur completed her Ph.D. ten years back. She has twenty years of teaching experience. Presently she is working as faculty at National Institute of Nursing Education, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India. She is member of 14 national scientific bodies. She has presented many papers and is the invited guest faculty at local, National and International conferences. She has number of publications in reputed journals and also is the author of many chapters in various books. She has keen interest in elderly and palliative care. She has completed many research projects. At present she is the principal investigator of five research project funded by Institute research scheme; Dept of Science and Technology, New Delhi; Dept. of Biotechnology, New Delhi and Indian Council of Medical Research New Delhi.