Changing student mental health nurse’s attitudes towards younger and older people through teaching: A qualitative longitudinal study

This paper reports on a qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) study investigating the effectiveness of an innovative teaching session focusing on changing the beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes of mental health nursing students towards older and younger people.
A QLR design was used to enable exploration of change over time. A pre, post and follow-up approach was implemented over six months, using multiple data collection methods. A Cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysis approach was applied.
Post-session themes of: stop and think; shock and surprise; different rules for different people; and new understanding of age-related attributes, were identified. Follow-up revealed changes of: wider awareness of discriminations, more open minded, sensitivity to discrimination across the life course, changed approaches to practice, question everything, ignore age. Longitudinal analysis of individual change demonstrated that real world, attitude-focused teaching was effective in changing student attitudes to younger and older people.
Change was complex and non-binary, raising students’ self-awareness and enabling generalisation of change to wider practice issues.