Perceptions and Knowledge of Older Adult Populations and Geriatric Care: An Assessment of Interdisciplinary Experiences and Workforce Development

PURPOSE: The Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition, sponsored by the Geriatric Education Center of Saint Louis University, is a current academic experience offered at to help students develop competencies in geriatric interprofessional practice. This study asked previous case competition participants (69 occupational therapy, 218 other medical and allied health majors) from years 2016-2019 (5 cohorts total) to complete evidence based assessments- Carolina Opinions on Care of Older Adults (COCOA) (2) to assess their perceptions, and the Facts on Aging Quiz (1) to assess knowledge of geriatric care and older adult populations in general. Our research question is: How are student perceptions and knowledge of towards older populations informing interest and pursuit in career specialization in geriatric health care? The purpose of this study is to inform workforce development efforts within the area of geriatric health care; along with the provision of useful outcomes to develop additional academic, clinical, and scientific resources to engage future clinicians in the area of productive aging. DESIGN: A retrospective quantitative survey was distributed via internet, self-reports on knowledge of geriatric care was assessed in a true- false format (50 items), and perceptions of older adult populations were obtained through Likert scale format (24 items). The study participants were comprised from former geriatric interprofessional case competition cohorts, the competition spans over seven weeks; and is interprofessional, comprehensive, and clinical/ community-based. We obtained sociodemographic characteristics which include age, gender, ethnicity, program type, year in clinical program at the time of competition participation, any geriatric course taken, exposure to a geriatric clinical practice, and attendance at a Public/ Private institution. METHODS: We utilized the Facts on Aging Quiz (1) to measurement comprised of 50 true-false questions designed to assess factual knowledge about aging and older persons, along with the COCOA (2) to gather perceptions about working with the older adults, and assess interest in a career in geriatrics. A descriptive analysis was also used to assess the sociodemographic composite and career choices of the study participants. A Logistic regression model is currently being used to assess the probability of higher knowledge of geriatric care with positive perceptions of older populations . OUTCOMES: This project is still on