The effect of a nursing home visit program on students' attitudes about the nursing home

Developing a negative attitude towards the elderly in the family and society can cause misbehavior towards them; therefore, improving the attitude towards the elderly will have positive effects on their health and quality of life. In the current research, an attempt has been made to investigate effect of a nursing home visit program on students' attitudes about the nursing home.

The present experimental study was conducted on 66 female students, seventh grade, in two groups of control and intervention by random block sampling in Tehran in 2016. The intervention group had a plan to visit nursing homes. Before visiting and meeting with the elderly, the intervention group students were given training on aging, elderly people and nursing homes, and how to communicate with the elderly was also explained. Then the program of visiting the old people's home was implemented. 4 weeks after the implementation of the intervention, the attitude survey questionnaire was completed again by both groups (103-105). Data collection was done with a researcher-made questionnaire in two sections: demographic information and students' attitudes. Students' attitudes were measured before and after the intervention in both groups. Data were measured using SPSS 23 software and independent t, paired t, Man-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests.

In the intervention group, there was a significant difference in the level of "attitude towards the elderly" before (16.13) and after the intervention (17.58) (P>0.001); But in the control group, the steps before (14.70) and after the intervention (14.96) did not show statistically significant difference (P>0.05). "Attitude towards the nursing home" in the intervention group, the scores before the intervention (21.61) compared to after the intervention (22.88), there was a statistically significant difference, and in the control group, no statistically significant difference was observed before and after the intervention. "Attitude towards leaving parents to nursing homes" in intervention and control groups; before and after the intervention, no significant statistical difference was observed (P < 0.05).

Visiting the nursing home had a positive effect on the students' attitudes towards the elderly and the nursing home, but it did not affect towards leaving parents to the nursing home.