Nursing Students Interest for a Career in Geriatrics

Dupuis-Blanchard, Suzanne M.

Monday, 31 October 2011

Suzanne M. Dupuis-Blanchard, BSN, MN, PhD¹
Anna MacLennan²
Odette Gould, PhD²
(1)School of Nursing, Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada
(2)Department of Psychology, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to better understand nursing students’ interests towards a career with older adults.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to describe the attitudes of nursing students for a career in geriatrics.

Will there be enough nurses to care for a growing aging population? This is an important question since older adults will demand health care professionals – including nurses – who can provide the best of care within an aging context. Countries like Canada, the United States and others have been talking about the aging tsunami but few have considered the impact of this age wave on the health care system and health care professionals. Statistics confirm that young health care professionals are not entering the field of geriatrics. This is a worrisome fact in the context of a growing aging population. The purpose of this study therefore, was to discover nursing students’ attitude and interest for a career in geriatrics.

The researchers of this mixed method project invited first, second and fourth year nursing students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at a Canadian university to answer a survey on their career interests. Third year nursing students from the same university took part in a focus group discussion. Following ethics approval, a researcher assistant attended the beginning of classes to explain and invite students to take part in the study. A total of 183 students filled out the survey and 10 students participated in a focus group discussion. Results seem to indicate that novice students were more positive overall than advanced students on their willingness to work with seniors and that paid work with older adults seems to provide a positive experience that makes students more willing to work with seniors again. With aging happening on the global platform, it is important that nurses and educators better understand how to encourage student nurses to consider a career in geriatrics.

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