Effects of Elderly Care Voluntary Program on Nursing College Students

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop an elderly care volunteer program for nursing students and to evaluate its effects. Method: An elderly care volunteer program was developed and then used with 77 nursing students for 6 months. Before and after the program, students responded with a questionnaire on knowledge, attitude and behavior toward the elderly. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, -test, t-test, and Repeated measure ANOVA. Result: The elderly care volunteer program significantly improved knowledge toward elderly between the experimental and control groups but not in attitude and behavior toward elderly. Conclusion: This study shows that the elderly care volunteer program was an effective service-learning program to improve knowledge toward elderly for nursing students.