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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Factors related to medical students' and doctors' attitudes towards older patients
— a systematic review | | Author(s) | Rajvinder Samra, Tom Cox, Adam Lee Gordon |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 46, no 6, November 2017 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, November 2017 |
| Pages | pp 911-919 |
| Full text* | https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/46/6/911/3787763 |
| Annotation | Studies have sought to identify the possible determinants of medical students' and doctors' attitudes towards older patients by examining links to a variety of factors: demographic, educational/training, exposure to older people, personality/cognitive and job/career factors. The purpose of this review was to collate and synthesise such findings. An electronic search of 10 databases was performed covering the period to February 2017. The main search identified 2,332 articles; of these, 37 studies met the eligibility criteria set. All included studies analysed self-reported attitudes based on correlational analyses or difference testing, therefore causation could not be determined. However self-reported positive attitudes towards older patients were related to: (i) intrinsic motivation for studying medicine, (ii) increased preference for working with older patients and (iii) good previous relationships with older people. Additionally more positive attitudes were reported in those with higher knowledge scores but these may relate to the use of a knowledge assessment which is an indirect measure of attitudes (i.e. Palmore's Facts on Aging Quizzes). Four out of the five high quality studies included in the review reported more positive attitudes in females compared to males. This article identifies factors associated with medical students' and doctors' positive attitudes towards older patients. Future research could bring greater clarity to the relationship between knowledge and attitudes by using a knowledge measure which is distinct from attitudes and also measures knowledge that is relevant to clinical care. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-171201202 A |
| Classmark | CC: LF: V6: XN: QT2: DP: TOB: 64A |
| *Online access to the full text may require a payment |
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information about this article, and many others, can be found on the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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