WILLINGNESS TO WORK WITH OLDER ADULTS IN THE MEDICAL FIELD IN IRAN-2017

Providing good health care for the elderly is one of the most important challenges of aging population. The current study was conducted to assess the willingness to work with elderly people among medical sciences students in Iran. This cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 583 students from medical universities in Tehran, Iran in 2017. A multi-stage stratified random sampling was employed to obtain the study sample. The Willingness to Work with Elderly People Scale (WEPS) was used to measure the dependent variable. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 23. The study sample consisted of 583 medical sciences students with a mean age of 21.98 (SD=3.63) years old. The total mean score for willingness to work with the elderly in medical students was found to be 72.07 (SD=9.50). The results revealed a significant association between fields of study and willingness to work with older adults (F (7, 575)=2.62, P<0.01). The results of this study showed that, the willingness to work with the elderly is low among students from medical universities in Tehran, Iran.