Exploratory study to evaluate staff attitudes towards geriatric psychiatry

This work is part of a larger study carried out at the Murray Royal and Murthly Hospitals within the Tayside Health District. The survey was concerned with staff attitudes towards geriatric psychiatry patients and shows that the nurses in these peripheral hospitals hold a positive attitude towards this area of nursing. These findings appear to contradict the popular opinion held throughout the nursing service, that the geriatric psychiatry nursing area is very unpopular with trained, untrained and learner nurses. In the study by Hooper [Nursing Times (1981) 77 37-40/43-44], anxiety levels among learners towards the geriatric nursing areas were found to be very high. This appears to correlate with Kogan [Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (1961) 62, 616-622], which summarized is as follows: Young subjects were imputed to have a more consistently negative view of old people.' By using a series of two precoded questionnaires that the subjects completed, an overview of staff attitudes towards the geriatric psychiatry areas was obtained. The hypothesis on which the study was based was as follows: that a negative view towards geriatric psychiatry would be found among the staff of the Murray Royal and Murthly Hospitals.' However, the findings of this study did not support the hypothesis on any counts and gave a highly positive attitude scale.