Attitudes of nurse professionals and nursing students towards children with disabilities. Do nurses really overcome children's physical and mental handicaps?
BACKGROUND
Many health professionals and nurses, who are involved in the care of disabled children, do not exhibit the essential sensitivity and appropriate attitudes towards them, resulting in a poor quality of nursing care.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to investigate the attitudes of nurse professionals (paediatric nurses) and nursing students towards disabled children.


METHODS
The present study is a comparative study. The sample consisted of 228 first-year nursing students, 90 post-diploma nurses attending MSc degree course and 123 nurse professionals who are employed in paediatric hospitals. After obtaining permission from the hospitals and the educational settings and informing about the subjects of the study, data were collected using the paediatric Attitude Towards Disabled Person Scale (ATDP).


RESULTS
Overall nurses' attitudes appeared to be poor (mean ATDP score 61.7 +/- 14.2). However, the post-diploma nurses had significantly higher ATDP scores than first-year students and paediatric nurses (P < 0.001). In addition, first-year students had significantly higher scores than paediatric nurses (P = 0.047). Across the sample, females hold significantly more positive attitudes than males (F = 9.5, P = 0.002), while age did not have any significant effect.


CONCLUSIONS
Carefully designed curricula can influence the attitudes of nursing students towards children with disabilities. Special courses for treating disabled children should be integrated to the basic nursing studies. Moreover, continuing hospital education can change paediatric nurses' attitudes towards children with disabilities.
Matziou
V
V
Faculty of Nursing, National & Kapodistrian, University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Galanis
P
P
Tsoumakas
C
C
Gymnopoulou
E
E
Perdikaris
P
P
Brokalaki
H
H
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D019988:Children with Disabilities; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D010371:Pediatric Nursing / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration; D011287:Prejudice; D012737:Sex Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires