Assessment and attitude of university students about elderly: Preliminary Study

Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitude of dental students towards elderly patients. This approach might increase the responsiveness and need of the geriatric dental education within the undergraduate dental students curriculum, which is the persistent necessity for today communities. Methods & Materials: A cross–sectional study was conducted on 201 students who were randomly selected. The investigation was carried out in Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. The attitude of dental students towards elderly was measured with a self-administered questionnaire consisting of an Aging Semantic Differential scale (ASD), which was developed by Rozencranz and Mc Nevin. Results: According to the findings of this study, the students’ attitude remained very positive towards the elderly patients as they showed a strong demand to work with elderly patients. This consisted of a 24 bipolar pair of adjectives that described the attributes of behavioral characteristics thought to be applicable to persons of all ages. Conclusion: According to our finding, the future geriatric dentistry is not towards a weak point in Iran as compared with the undesirable attitudes of dental students in the developed countries.