Different Cultures but Similar Positive Attitudes: A Comparison between Thai and Swedish Nursing Students' Attitudes toward Older People

The proportion of elderly people in the world's population is growing. Thailand and Sweden have disparate cultural traditions of caring for older people, though both countries are facing a larger population of older people. Sweden and Thailand are involved in several cooperative projects and exchange programs for nursing students in this area, raising the questions of if and how the different cultures of gerontological care influence students’ attitudes in the issue. The aim of the study was to compare Swedish and Thai nursing students’ attitudes towards older people. A convenience sample of 241 Thai nursing students and 299 Swedish nursing students participated in the study. The Kogan's Old People Scale, a 34-item questionnaire, was used in this research. The questionnaire consists of 17 positive (OP+) statements and 17 negative (OP-) statements and uses a Likert scale. Concerning attitudes towards older people, there was no significant difference in Swedish and Thai students’ positive scores in the distribution across the groups. In contrast, these students did differ on negative scores across countries (p = .001). This was understood to be related to age; the Swedish students’ higher age was positively associated with their positive attitudes; as the age increased, the students’ scores were also higher. Attitudes towards older people are not only influenced by cultural values, norms, and social structures, they also have a foundation in gerontological knowledge and experiences. Education addressing cultural awareness of negative ageism should be incorporated into all aspects of education, not just gerontological courses.