Geriatric education. Part II: The effect of a well elderly program on medical student attitudes toward geriatric patients.
OBJECTIVE
To assess impact of exposure to healthy elderly on medical students' attitudes toward the elderly.


METHODS
Prospective, randomized, controlled intervention trial.


METHODS
Community-based Well Elderly Program.


METHODS
Ninety-three fourth year medical students on a required Geriatric Medicine clerkship who were assigned to either a tertiary care university medical center or a teaching nursing home.


METHODS
Thirty-five students were randomly assigned to participate in a Well Elderly Program and were compared to a control group of 58 students at equivalent sites who did not participate.


METHODS
Pre- and post-rotation, students were given the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD), a validated geriatric attitudinal scale.


RESULTS
By repeated measures analysis of variance, the difference between pre- and post-rotation ASD scores were most significant for students who participated in the Well Elderly Program; site did not exert a significant interaction effect.


CONCLUSIONS
These results underscore the importance of exposure to healthy older people on effecting positive attitude changes among medical students on geriatrics rotations.
Adelman
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RD
Division of Geriatrics, Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, NY 11501.
Fields
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SD
Jutagir
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R
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D003479:Curriculum; D005260:Female; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000193:education*; D006299:Health Services for the Aged; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*