Nursing Staff's Attitudes on the Elderly Nutrition in Ankara (Turkey)

Abstract

This study was conducted to identify the nurse and care givers’ attitudes towards the nutrition of the elderly. A cross-sectional and descriptive study was carried out in the geriatric care centers (nursing homes, hospitals) in Ankara, Turkey. It was conducted on 100 nursing staff (71 care givers, 29 nurses) working in geriatric care centers and agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected via a survey and “SANN-G” scale (Staff Attitudes to Nutritional Nursing Care Geriatric Scale) was used in order to identify the nursing staff’s attitudes towards the nutrition of the elderly (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.74). It was concluded that the nursing staff's total scores and dimension scores were below the cut-off scores for positive attitudes. That is, the nursing staff had insufficient knowledge about the nutrition of the elderly. The attitude scores were found to increase as the nursing staff’s educational level and work experience increased while the staff working in hospitals received higher scores than those working in other institutions. At the end of the study, it was determined that the nursing staff had insufficient knowledge about the nutrition of the elderly. It is suggested that nursing staff should have special education on the elderly nutrition and continuity of this education should be provided.