ATTITUDES OF REHAB STUDENTS TOWARDS ELDERLY WITH DISABILITY; A CROSS SECTIONAL SURVEY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61919/jhrr.v2i2.22Keywords:
Rehabilitation Students, Attitudes, Elderly Patients, Disability, Geriatric Care, Specialized Care, Challenges, Strategies, Personal ExperiencesAbstract
Background:
Rehabilitation professionals play a crucial role in providing care for elderly patients with disability, but little is known about student’s attitude towards this population. Understanding rehabilitation students' attitudes towards elderly patients with disability can inform future training and education for rehabilitation professionals.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to investigate the attitudes of rehabilitation students towards elderly patients with disability.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 457 rehabilitation students in at five major universities/Colleges of Lahore. The survey consisted of demographic questions, six Likert-scale questions about attitudes towards elderly patients with disability, and three open-ended questions about challenges in providing care, strategies to improve care, and personal experiences with elderly patients with disability. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data in SPSS 26.0.
Results:
The majority of participants (43.8%) were between the ages of 25-34, and more than half (52.5%) identified as female. The majority of participants (87.6%) were enrolled in a course related to disability rehabilitation. Most participants agreed that elderly patients with disability require specialized care (56.9%), working with elderly patients with disability is challenging (60.6%), and elderly patients with disability have unique needs that are different from younger patients with disability (86.6%). Most participants felt comfortable working with elderly patients with disability (67.6%) and did not hold negative attitudes towards their recovery or quality of life. The open-ended responses identified several challenges in providing care to elderly patients with disability, strategies to improve care, and personal experiences with this population.
Conclusion:
Rehabilitation students have positive attitudes towards elderly patients with disability, recognizing the need for specialized care and the unique challenges associated with working with this population. The findings highlight the importance of incorporating geriatric care into rehabilitation curricula to improve the attitudes and competencies of rehabilitation professionals in caring for elderly patients with disability.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Atiqa Ijaz, Alina Arshad
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