Seeing is Perceiving: Using Visual Art to Explore Undergraduate Nursing Students' Perceptions of Older Adults

Nursing students often have negative perceptions of caring for older adults and show less interest in working with this population. It is essential to prepare nurses to meet the unique needs of this population.

To assess the implementation and utility of a health humanities-based activity for nursing students to reflect on their perceptions of older adults.

Using a mixed-methods, retrospective pre-posttest design, students (N = 50) observed photographs of older adults living in the community. A consensual qualitative approach analyzed students' written reflections and investigators' field notes. An investigator-developed experience survey was analyzed using nonparametric paired t -tests.

Four themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: relatedness, assumptions about aging, appreciation of aging, and professional formation. Significant improvements were noted on all experience survey items.

The findings support using a health-humanities teaching strategy to foster nursing students' positive perceptions toward older adults.