| Abstract | Objective: By the year 2050, the expected elderly population in the United States will be 83.7 million individuals (Lowey, 2017). Therefore, the number of healthcare professionals to care for the elderly needs to be increased to meet the demand that will be evident. Does the Seniors Assisting in Geriatric Education Program (SAGE) program change healthcare students attitudes toward caring for the geriatric population? Design: Quasi-experimental study with nonlinear, separate pre-SAGE and post-SAGE samples. Participants and Setting: This study was completed at Texas Christian University (TCU) with the Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences and the College of Science and Engineering nutritional science students and faculty There were 75 participants in the pre-SAGE sample and 72 participants in the post-SAGE sample, made up of Nursing, Social Work, and Nutritional Sciences. Measurement: To measure the healthcare students' attitudes, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Geriatric Attitudes Scale was used. This was used in conjunction with a 16 question demographic form. Results: The researchers looked at TCU data overall and Nursing separately. Two items on the survey held significance in the overall data and one item in the nursing data specifically. The students answered more positively on the significantly different questions. |
