Nurses' attitudes towards older people and working with older patients: an explanatory model.

Aim: To establish an explanatory model of registered nurses' attitudes towards older people and working with older patients.

Background: Increasing demands for health-care from an ageing population will require a higher proportion of nurses who have positive attitudes towards older people and like working with older patients.

Method: A convenience sample of registered nurses (n = 579; 79.3% response rate) attending continuing professional education courses within a large university in London was surveyed from October to December 2011.

Results: Registered nurses expressed positive attitudes towards older people and 89.7% reported positive attitudes towards working with older patients. The variables of self-ageing anxiety, attitudes towards health-care resource allocation, knowledge of ageing, ethnic group, job title, attitudes towards older patients and interaction between ethnic group and attitudes towards working with older patients explained 42.6% of the variance in attitudes towards older people. Factors, including attitudes towards older people, self-ageing anxiety, commitment to nursing, attitudes towards health-care resources allocation among older people and clinical specialty explained 16.7-34.3% of the variance in attitudes towards older patients.

Conclusion: The models identified several related factors that may help in the selection and management of nurses for caring older people.

Implications For Nursing Management: Our findings highlight the importance of investing in continuing education related to gerontological nursing and the ageing process so that there is a growing pool of registered nurses who wish to care for older patients.