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Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project

The detrimental effects of negative attitudes toward aging among younger adults extend to both older and young adults, highlighting the need for attention from academics, applied researchers, and practitioners. To improve college students’ attitudes toward aging, an intergenerational reminiscence in...

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Autores principales: Xu, Ling, Fields, Noelle L., Cassidy, Jessica, Daniel, Kathryn M., Cipher, Daisha J., Troutman, Brooke A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10376671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37503985
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs13070538
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author Xu, Ling
Fields, Noelle L.
Cassidy, Jessica
Daniel, Kathryn M.
Cipher, Daisha J.
Troutman, Brooke A.
author_facet Xu, Ling
Fields, Noelle L.
Cassidy, Jessica
Daniel, Kathryn M.
Cipher, Daisha J.
Troutman, Brooke A.
author_sort Xu, Ling
collection PubMed
description The detrimental effects of negative attitudes toward aging among younger adults extend to both older and young adults, highlighting the need for attention from academics, applied researchers, and practitioners. To improve college students’ attitudes toward aging, an intergenerational reminiscence intervention was conducted. College students, who were randomized to intervention or control groups and matched with older adults, made weekly phone calls to community-dwelling older adults with cognitive impairment for ten weeks. This study investigated whether college students improved their attitudes toward aging after participating in this project. A total of 64 college student participants completed the whole intervention and all data collection. The Fraboni Scale of Ageism was used to measure attitudes toward aging and administered at three time points (pre-, mid-, and post-test). Parametric and nonparametric tests were examined to understand changes over time, and post-hoc analyses were conducted to understand timepoints in which changes occurred. The results showed that both the intervention and control groups evidenced a decrease in the majority of the ageism scale, including statistical improvements in three specific negative items, which were “Seniors are stingy and hoard money”, “Seniors live in the past”, and “I prefer not to spend time with seniors”. Overall, the findings indicate that weekly engagement with older adults is promising in improving attitudes toward aging among college students. Implications for future research on intergenerational contacts to improve attitudes toward aging are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-103766712023-07-29 Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project Xu, Ling Fields, Noelle L. Cassidy, Jessica Daniel, Kathryn M. Cipher, Daisha J. Troutman, Brooke A. Behav Sci (Basel) Brief Report The detrimental effects of negative attitudes toward aging among younger adults extend to both older and young adults, highlighting the need for attention from academics, applied researchers, and practitioners. To improve college students’ attitudes toward aging, an intergenerational reminiscence intervention was conducted. College students, who were randomized to intervention or control groups and matched with older adults, made weekly phone calls to community-dwelling older adults with cognitive impairment for ten weeks. This study investigated whether college students improved their attitudes toward aging after participating in this project. A total of 64 college student participants completed the whole intervention and all data collection. The Fraboni Scale of Ageism was used to measure attitudes toward aging and administered at three time points (pre-, mid-, and post-test). Parametric and nonparametric tests were examined to understand changes over time, and post-hoc analyses were conducted to understand timepoints in which changes occurred. The results showed that both the intervention and control groups evidenced a decrease in the majority of the ageism scale, including statistical improvements in three specific negative items, which were “Seniors are stingy and hoard money”, “Seniors live in the past”, and “I prefer not to spend time with seniors”. Overall, the findings indicate that weekly engagement with older adults is promising in improving attitudes toward aging among college students. Implications for future research on intergenerational contacts to improve attitudes toward aging are discussed. MDPI 2023-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC10376671/ /pubmed/37503985 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs13070538 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Brief Report
Xu, Ling
Fields, Noelle L.
Cassidy, Jessica
Daniel, Kathryn M.
Cipher, Daisha J.
Troutman, Brooke A.
Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title_full Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title_fullStr Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title_short Attitudes toward Aging among College Students: Results from an Intergenerational Reminiscence Project
title_sort attitudes toward aging among college students: results from an intergenerational reminiscence project
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10376671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37503985
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs13070538
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