Myth Evaluations of Nursing Students about Older Adults during Disasters - Hemşirelik Öğrencilerinin Afetlerde Yaşlı Yetişkinlerle İlgili Mitlerin Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Objective: Ensuring the health welfare of older adults in emergencies and disasters is a public health problem. Aim: This study aims to analyze the evaluation of the myths, which older adults are exposed to during disasters and emergencies, by the nursing students of a university. Methods: The number of the students in the descriptive cross-sectional study was 377, and 83.0% of the population were reached. The data of the variables included some questions of the questionnaire used by the UNISDR in a research about the elderly and the myth questions in the book entitled International Disaster Nursing. Results: 80.4% of the research group were female and 56.0 were junior class students, whereas 93.6% lived with both parents and 38.5% had a disaster. The mean (SS) age of the group was 19.89 (1.7) and the mean scores of the participants were 2.97 (1.07) for the Older People Myth Index (OPMI), 30.94 (6.19) for the vulnerability index and 6.41 (1.73) for the value index. Conclusions: There was a relationship between the students' OPMI scores and the junior classes. Therefore, it was found that education had a positive effect on the perception of older adults.