Ageism Based on the Views of Nursing Students: Case of Turkey

Objective: This study was conducted to examine the views of second and fourth-year nursing students, studying in a Faculty of Health Sciences in Turkey, about ageism. Methodology: While the population of this descriptive and cross-sectional study consisted of 340 second and fourth-year students in the spring term of the 2019-2020 academic year, the sample consisted of 209 students who agreed to participate in the study. A "Questionnaire", prepared by the researchers, and "Positive and Negative Ageism Scale" were employed to collect data. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, the MannWhitney U test, and the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: 96.2% of the students were in the age range of 20 and 24 years, 71.3% were female, and 55% were the second-year students. The positive ageism mean score of the students was 45.67±6.97, the negative ageism mean score was 23.21± 6.44, and the positive and negative ageism total mean score was 68.88 ±8.05. While the grade of the students and their willingness to care for an elderly patient in the clinic are correlated with positive ageism score, gender and their willingness to care for an elderly patient in the clinic were correlated with negative ageism score (p