Rokaia Fathi Mohammed^1,, Alzahraa Abdel Aziz Omar²

Background: There is an increase in the health problems associated with increasing in elderly population worldwide. As nursing students are the future health care providers, their positive attitudes towards elders and adequate knowledge of elderly care would improve the quality of provided services. The aim: of the present study was to investigate knowledge about elderly care and its relation to ageism attitude among undergraduate nursing students. Design: A descriptive research study was used. Setting: this study was conducted at faculty of Nursing-Minia university. Subjects: All available nursing students (320 students) at fourth academic year, and data was collected in December, 2017. Tools: Three tools were utilized; first one covered personal data of the studied sample, the second one was the Ageism Attitude Scale (AAS), and the last one was knowledge questionnaire sheet about care of elderly people. Results: The majority of Minia university nursing students have lack of knowledge regarding care of elderly people and held negative attitude toward them, also there was a significant correlation between nursing student's knowledge about elderly care and their ageism attitude, in which nursing student's knowledge about elderly care was significantly affect their ageism attitude. Conclusion: Nursing students of Minia university have unsatisfactory level of knowledge regarding elderly care and demonstrate negative attitude toward them. Recommendation: Nursing faculties seek Gerontological nursing as a separate specialty and providing evidence-based Gerontological nursing education programs is urgently needed in order to change nursing students stereotypes and negative attitudes toward elderly people, and to meet the challenge of care for them.

ageism attitude, elderly people, gerontological nursing, knowledge, nursing students