Abstract
BackgroundThe aging population has become a serious challenge for health care service and will lead to an increasing demand for nurses to work with older people. However, working with older people has always been an unpopular career choice among nursing students. This study aimed to further explore the willingness and associated factors of undergraduate nursing students to work with older people in China.MethodsA convenience sampling method was employed from May to July 2017 among undergraduate nursing students from a nursing school in Nantong China. Demographic data, the Chinese version of the Kogan’s Old Person’s Scale, the Chinese version of the Facts of Aging Quiz and the motivation questionnaire were used to collect data. A series of Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, Spearman correlation test and Ordinal logistic regression analysis were applied to analyze the data.ResultsOf the 853 students surveyed, 38.1 % were willing to work with older people after graduation. Expectancy, interest, attainment value, cost, prejudice, whether they like nursing profession and whether they participated in elderly-related activities were the most significant predictors of the students’ willingness to work with older people.ConclusionsNursing students expressed a low level of willingness to work with older people upon graduation. Nursing educators have an important part in challenging students’ stereotype of older people and inspire their career choice in caring for older people through both well-designed curriculum and elderly-related activities, and relevant education departments should actively optimize aged-related courses, strengthen professional ethics and gratitude education, and improve nursing students’ sense of identity and mission in caring for older people, so as to improve their willingness to work with older people.
Highlights
The aging population has become a serious challenge for health care service and will lead to an increasing demand for nurses to work with older people
This study aimed to take motivation into account and further explore the willingness and associated factors of undergraduate nursing students to work with older people, so as to provide some information for nurse educators to use in nursing education and development of curriculum
Willingness to work with older people Of the 853 students surveyed, 325 (38.1 %) were willing to work with older people after graduation, 411 (48.2 %) were unsure whether they would like to work with older people, and 117(13.7 %) were unwilling to work with older people
Summary
The aging population has become a serious challenge for health care service and will lead to an increasing demand for nurses to work with older people. This study aimed to further explore the willingness and associated factors of undergraduate nursing students to work with older people in China. It is estimated that the number of people aged 65 or above in China has reached 158.31 million, which accounts for 11.4 % of the total population [1]. It is estimated that the incidence rate of chronic diseases among older people in China is 75.1 % and the number of disabled and semi-disabled older people will continue to grow [3]. Nursing students are the main source of nursing team to care for older people in the future, it is imperative to explore the willingness and influencing factors of nursing students to work with older people
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