Abstract

This study compared nurses’ and care workers’ scores on the Dialogue Preference Scales for Elderly (DPSE) created from data from nursing students in Japan. For this forward-looking, quantitative, questionnairebased study, data collection was conducted from 2010 to 2012 with care seminar participants in Japan. Participants were nurses (n = 277; 36.96 ± 10.33 years old, males; 4.33% females; 95.66%) and care workers (n = 83; 40.52 ± 11.68 years old, males; 25.30% females; 74.69). The samples varied significantly in mean age (p < 0.05) and gender (p < 0.001). The number of years of experience was 139.94 for nurses with SD = 10.99 and 90.99 for care workers with SD = 45.44 (p < 0.001).

Data were gathered using the 15-item Dialogue Preference Scales for Elderly (DPSE or Shimizu scale), which assesses nurses’ negative cognition and attitude tendencies during their conversations with elderly individuals [1]. The DPSE measures attributes and the four sub-concepts of bewilderment, anxiety, cognitive bias, and communication difficulty. Higher scores indicate more negative cognitions or attitudes (maximum score: 28). Data were descriptively analyzed using Pearson’s χ² test and student’s t test of confirmatory factors. Nurses’ total scores (mean; 57.31, SD = 11.84) were not significantly different than care worker’s scores (mean; 57.58, SD = 12.25), indicating that nurses, and care workers had a similar view of communicating with older people. However, the sub-concept of cognitive bias was significantly lower for nurses, as they likely had higher levels of ageism (p < 0.10). Additionally, the communication difficulty sub-concept also was significantly higher for nurses, possibly because they had been caring for much older patients with more severe illnesses (p < 0.01).