Freshman and senior medical students’ attitudes toward the elderly

The authors’ purpose in the present study was to examine attitudes toward the elderly among medical students and the impact of medical education on such attitudes. Questionnaires first used in a similar study in the 1960s were administered to freshman and senior medical students in 1981 and 1984 at one medical school. Comparison of these two groups indicated that the seniors viewed the elderly more positively than did the freshmen in certain areas, namely the productivity, social significance, and sexuality of the aged. To control for potentially confounding shifts in cultural values in society as a whole and in medical school selection variables, the two freshman groups were compared, and the two senior groups were compared. Results of these analyses indicated few, if any, differences between the freshman classes of 1981 and 1984 or between the senior classes of the same years. Finally, a longitudinal analysis was performed to contrast the attitudes of the students first sampled as freshmen in 1981 to their perceptions as seniors in 1984. Further, the results of the present study were compared with those of a similar study in the 1960s. Taken together, these results indicate that attitudes toward the elderly are becoming more favorable in society in general and in medical schools in particular and that the medical education process was responsible for the more favorable attitudes expressed by the senior medical students.