Difficulties Experienced by Nurses in Older Patient Care and Their Attitudes Toward the Older Patients

Background: There is little known about nurses' attitudes toward older people in Turkish society, particularly within centers providing care to older patients.

Objective: This research was conducted to determine nurses' attitudes toward older patient care and the difficulties they experience.

Design: A descriptive research design was used.

Settings: The research population comprised 282 nurses working in the clinics of public hospitals in central Erzurum that mostly accommodate older patients.

Methods: Participants completed questionnaires regarding descriptive characteristics, the type of difficulties they experienced in older patient care, and the Turkish version of Kogan's Attitudes Toward Old People Scale. Data were evaluated by using percentage, Kruskal-Wallis variance analysis, t test and Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: The study revealed that nurses experienced difficulties due to the inadequacy of physical conditions and technical equipment in hospitals; administrative problems; communication problems; and insufficient knowledge, skills and experience in older patient care. The nurses' overall attitude toward the older people was found to be positive (98.83 ± 11.19).

Conclusions: The difficulties experienced by nurses in this sample resulted from the lack of technically equipped hospitals or clinics for older patients and the inadequacy of nurses' gerontology education. Despite these factors, the nurses' attitude toward older people was positive.