The effects of an in-service program upon the attitudes of nursing aides

Twenty-six female nursing aides were divided into two groups to determine whether an in-service training program would enhance their attitudes toward physically disabled geriatric patients requiring custodial care. The Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Questionnaire (ATDP) was administered to the experimental and control groups before and after the in-service training program. Each in-service program consisted of a lecture on a specific topic followed by informal discussion of patient care. Three research hypotheses were tested to evaluate the effectiveness of the in-service program in altering attitudes toward the physically disabled: (1) The experimental group would score higher on post-test than on pre-test; (2) The control group would not score higher on post-test than on pre-test; and (3) The experimental group would change more from pre-test to post-test than would the control group. All three research hypotheses were supported (the first at p less than .005 and the third at p less than .01). Limitation of the study and suggestions for further research were discussed.