Difference in the level of ageist attitudes of nurses and nursing students

Ageism in nursing is a common phenomenon, which manifests in many ways and negatively affects a patient and her care.GoalThe goal of quantitative analysis is to find the difference between ageist attitudes among nurses and nursing students.MethodsThe nonprobability sample contained two groups. One group consisted of 126 nurses and the other group consisted of 94 nursing students. The Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) was used to quantify the stance and the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test was used to evaluate the difference between the two groups.ResultsNurses and nursing students had low to intermediate levels of ageist attitudes according to FSA. Nurses showed higher levels of ageist attitudes compared to nursing students as evaluated by Mann-Whitney U-test.ConclusionAgeism is a part of nursing care and it needs to be eliminated. One way how to achieve this is by early awareness of one's own prejudice.