THE SURVEY OF HEALTH ATTITUDE TOWARD ELDERS AMONG CARE PROVIDERS

health care providers have different attitudes and belies toward elders that have effect on their behaviors in health service delivery to older adults. This study was done to determine the Golestan province health centers staffs attitude towards elders.
In this cross-sectional study, 152 general practitioners of Glestan province health centers were selected via random simple sampling. Demographic questionnaire and Kogan's Attitudes toward Older People Scale (KAOPS) was used as data gathering tools. Data analysis was done in SPSS 16 software environment with Pearson correlation coefficient, paired t-test, t-tests and one way ANOVA.
mean and standard deviation of participants age was 34.48 (4.31) years. Mean and standard deviation of total score of attitude toward elder scale was 116.42±9.58 (score range in scale 34-204). Lower score than mean were observed in 49.3 percent of health care providers. Negative attitude mean score were higher than positive attitude mean and paired t-test showed the difference is significant (P according to our finding, only half of participants had favorite attitude toward aged people. Whereas, negative attitudes to this age group were higher than positive attitudes, designing some programs for change in attitudes of heath care staffs is necessary.