Bipula Gaire
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Nepal
Title: Attitude of Youth towards the Elderly People in the Selected Community.
Biography
Biography: Bipula Gaire
Abstract
Global ageing is the success story of the 21st century as a result of declining fertility, mortality and improved public health interventions. With the increased elderly population, the attitude of societies about ageing changes. Positive attitudes towards the elderly people are valued, respected and experienced but most of the literature shows negative perceptions towards elderly people among the youth, especially in the form of stereotypical behaviours and ageism which can result in social exclusion, isolation and ultimately the abuse of elderly people and disempowerment of elderly . Cross sectional research design was used to assess the attitude of youth towards the elderly people in the selected community from August 12 to September 7, 2018. Total of 380 youth were interviewed by using modified Kogan’s Old People Scale and structured questions. Systematic random sampling technique was used for data collection.
More than half of the youth 66.1% had positive attitude level towards the elderly. With regards to the attitude towards the care of elderly almost of all of the youth (97.9%) had positive attitude towards the care of the elderly. There was significant association between gender and attitude towards elderly (p=0.04) and occupation and attitude towards the care of the elderly (p=0.02) at 95% of significance level.
Although more than half of the youth have positive attitude toward the elderly people still there is need to provide awareness program to increase the positive attitude.It helps the health professional in elucidating the negative attitudes and enhancing the positive attitude which aids in improving overall quality and health of the elderly people.