The effect of a home visit on first year medical students' attitudes towards older adults

Background: Despite the ageing population, few Canadian trainees are choosing Geriatric Medicine as a career. We investigated the effect of our only face-to-face contact with pre-clinical medical students on their attitudes toward older adults. Methods: After a 2-hour introductory lecture on ageing, each medical student completed the Opinions About People questionnaire. This can be factored into 7 Attitudes toward ageing. After both a home visit to a senior and a 1-hour debriefing session, the students again completed the questionnaire. Changes in attitudes were measured for the whole class, and stratified by sex and median age. Results: 73 students completed the questionnaire on both occasions. At baseline, attitudes were generally positive. Only two attitudes (unfavourable stereotype and paternalism) showed changes, both in the undesirable direction. In subgroup analyses, changes in unfavourable stereotype were only seen in females. The attitudes of students 25 and older did not change. Conclusions: Our intervention had little effect on attitudes, and perhaps a negative effect. Reasons for this include limitations of the instrument, the typically healthy seniors chosen for the visits, or a true negative effect of the intervention. With limited access to pre-clinical medical students, academic programs in Canada will need to carefully structure and evaluate their teaching, in order to attract trainees to our specialty.