Association Between Agism Among Nursing Students and Their Cognitive Social Capital : A Comparison Based on Motivation to Support Older Adults as Volunteers

<p>A web-based questionnaire survey was carried out involving 242 second- to fourth-year nursing students at a single nursing college to evaluate the association of the willingness to participate in volunteer activities to support older people with agism and cognitive social capital. Valid responses were obtained from 90 students (valid response rate : 37.2%), and they were classified into : 19 (21.1%) judged to be motivated (motivated group) and 71 (78.8%) judged not to be motivated (unmotivated group) to participate in volunteer activities for older people. On the Japanese short version of the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA), the scores of “I personally would not want to spend much time with an old person” and “The company of most old people is quite enjoyable (reverse item)” concerning ’avoidance’ were significantly lower in the motivated group compared with the unmotivated group (p<0.01). Also, the median score of all items of ’avoidance’ of the FAS was significantly lower in the motivated compared with unmotivated group (p<0.01). A weak but significant negative correlation was observed between the scores of cognitive social capital and ’avoidance’ of FSA (r_s＝－0.394, p<0.001).</p><p>The willingness of students to participate in volunteer activities to support older people was suggested to be associated with ’avoidance’ of FSA in the trust and the model. For the future, it will be necessary for motivated people to convey information about positive aspects of older people to promote more favorable views about them in society.</p>