Nurses' attitudes towards people with dementia : the semantic differential technique

• One important aspect of the nurse-patient relationship is the nurses' attitudes towards their patients. Nurses' attitudes towards people with dementia have been studied from a wide range of approaches, but few of them have focused on the structure in nurses' attitudes. This study aimed to identify a structure in licensed practical nurses' attitudes towards people with dementia. Twenty-one group dwelling units for people with dementia at eleven nursing homes participated in the study. In all, 1,577 assessments of 178 patients were sent out to 181 respondents and 1,237 answers were returned. The semantic differential technique was used. The scale has 57 bipolar pairs of adjectives, which estimate an unknown number of dimensions of nurses' attitudes towards an identified patient. The assessments were analysed using entropy-based measures of association combined with structural plots. The analysis revealed four dimensions. These four dimensions related to licensed practical nurses' opinion of the patients; from an ethical and aesthetic dimension; their ability to understand; their ability to experience; their ability for social interaction. The study indicates that, on the positive to negative attitude continuum, attitudes fall at the positive to neutral end of the continuum. This is an important finding due to the personhood perspective. From this perspective, it is reasonable to assume that with a more positive attitude to people with dementia, the prerequisites for person-centred care will improve.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

attitudes

dementia

entropy

nursing

semantic differential

Omvårdnad

Caring sciences

Vårdvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)