| Description |
The rapidly aging US population, including many with chronic debilitating illnesses, creates increased demand for health care professionals with geriatric training. One barrier to meeting this demand is the limited desire of nursing students to work with older adults. The purpose of this mixed method study was to develop, implement, and evaluate the feasibility of ethnodrama as an intervention to increase positive perceptions of aging in a sample of nursing students and older adults living in assisted living. Twelve nursing students worked with 12 long term care residents during a 4-month period to complete a transformational learning experience involving interviews, discussion, and self-reflections on the topic of possible selves. The participants created and presented an ethnodrama derived from these experiences and qualitative data. Feasibility was evaluated through participation logs, self-reflection journals, open-ended postintervention survey questions, digital video of the initial student meeting, and postperformance discussion. Student attitudes towards older adults were measured at six time points before and during the process while adults completed pre and post surveys targeting attitudes toward aging. Qualitative data were analyzed in two cycles: 1) in vivo coding and, 2) pattern coding. Quantitative data from student participants were analyzed using growth modeling, and older adult data were analyzed with a paired samples t-test. iv Feasibility of ethnodrama as intervention and the process of ethnodrama creation were documented. Participant feedback emphasized late life potential. Both students and older adults initially expressed attitudes falling in the most positive quantiles of the attitude scales. Students who interacted more frequently with older adults had less idealized, though still positive, attitudes (p=.011 and p=.008 for attitudes towards older adults ages 65 and 80, respectively). The attitude scales displayed consistent gradual but modest average improvement over the course of intervention, with large individual differences in rate of change. Increasing discussion about late life potential may alter the stigma associated with aging, augmenting student interest in working with older adult populations. Ethnodrama is one feasible method of enhancing discussion. Normalizing attitudes may be as important as improving attitudes and more representative of realistic perceptions of older adults and late life potential. |
