Development and Effect of a Geriatric Nursing Convergence Education Program for Nursing Students

This study was conducted to understand the effects on the attitude toward the elderly, willingness to geriatric nursing practice, and global competencies by developing a geriatric-nursing convergence education program. This program that combines the theory of elderly care and practical education and applies it to nursing students. This is a nonequivalent control group pretest–posttest design. The study participants consisted of 19 in a control group and 17 in an experimental group. They were the second-year of the nursing students in A city, Chungcheongnam-do. This program, including character building, elderly care competence, global competence, and community contribution, was held for 80 hours from August 28, 2017 to December 8, 2017. The experimental group compared to the control group, attitude toward the elderly (Z =-.46, p =.66), willingness to geriatric nursing practice (Z =-.64, p =.53), global competence (Z =-1.08, p =.29) showed no statistically significant difference. As a result of this study, it is suggested to develop and implement a convergence education program that nursing students can form positive attitudes toward the elderly and interact directly with the elderly.