Attitudes of first-year physician assistant students towards older adults

research has established that attitudes can influence behavior. However, there is little information on physician assistant (PA) students' attitudes towards older adults. Research conducted on medical students has often revealed negative attitudes and little interest in geriatrics. This study investigates the attitudes of first-year PA students regarding older adults and provides data on this underdeveloped area in the literature.

first-year PA students at Western Michigan University were invited to participate in a study that involved responding to two questionnaires: a modified version of Polizzi's 2003 Aging Semantic Differential (ASD), using men and women aged 70 to 85 as the target population, and a survey consisting of custom-made, fill-in, Likert-scale questions regarding relationships and contact with older adults.

the mean ASD score of 2.53 indicated a mildly positive attitude towards the target population. The only significant association found through regression analyses was that students with weekly socialization with older adults had more positive attitudes towards them than did the students with yearly socialization.

the direct and significant association of frequency of socialization with positive attitude towards older adults is consistent with similar research on first-year medical students. Some medical schools have implemented strategies of intentional socialization between their students and older adults to improve the students' attitudes. PA programs may want to further assess their students' attitudes to older adults and implement interventions to improve them, where indicated. Additionally, several questions for additional research are suggested from this study.