GERIATRIC NURSES' ATTITUDES, EMPATHY, AND IDEOLOGIC ORIENTATION

摘要

The study was designed to: (1) explore the interrelationships among those psychosocial variables thought to enhance nursing personnel's working therapeutically with elderly persons and (2) obtain descriptive data of nursing personnel working with elderly nursing home residents. Specifically, nursing personnel's level of empathy, attitudinal direction (positive or negative), and ideologic orientation toward treatment (custodial or therapeutic) were studied. A search of the literature revealed no research connecting the variables in the study.;A survey method was used for the collection of data. The volunteer sample, from 7 metropolitan and suburban nursing homes, consisted of three subsamples: (1) 62 registered nurses, (2) 62 practical nurses, and (3) 239 nursing aides for a total sample of 363. A comparison of job expectancies was made between charge and staff nurses. The subjects completed a written questionnaire consisting of: (1) a Personal Inventory designed to obtain demographic characteristics and perceived job expectancies; (2) the Kogan Old People's Scale; (3) the Gilbert and Levinson Custodial Mental Illness Scale; and (4) the LaMonica Empathy Construct Rating Scale.;The results of the study were: (1) registered nurses were more empathic, less custodial, and less negative in attitude toward elderly persons (p < .025, using F and Scheffe tests) than practical nurses and nursing aides; (2) practical nurses were less custodial and less negative in attitude (p < .025, using F and Scheffe tests) than nursing aides; (3) the mean scores for empathy, CMI, and Kogan's Negative Scale (KNS) were different among nursing homes (p < .001, using F test); (4) the Pearson product-moment correlations between nursing personnel's negativism on the KNS and empathy was -.499 (p < .001); ideologic orientation toward custodialism and negativism on the KNS was .799 (p < .001); ideologic orientation toward custodialism and empathy was -.452; and (5) Pearson product-moment correlations for individual nursing homes were consistent with the above results. Partial correlations controlling for age, length of nursing practice, length of nursing practice with the elderly, and year of graduation from nursing school were consistent with the above results. It was also found that there is a high degree of congruence of job performance expectations between staff nurses and charge nurses. Both groups agreed upon the first four categories (though not in the same order): job performance, rapport with elderly residents, quality of care, and personality characteristics of nursing personnel. Finally, the widely used Kogan's Old Peoples Scale was found not to possess construct validity. Replication of the study with instrument development was recommended.