Clinical and counseling psychology doctoral trainees’ attitudes toward and interest in working with older adult clients

ABSTRACT

The small percentage of psychologists specializing in geropsychology will be increasingly insufficient to meet projected mental health needs of the growing older adult population in the United States. The current study examined contact with older adults, empathy, and multicultural competence as predictors of counseling and clinical psychology doctoral trainees’ attitudes toward and interest in working with older adults. A sample of 311 doctoral trainees in clinical (n = 234) and counseling (n = 78) psychology were surveyed online. A structural equation model testing hypothesized interrelationships between study variables showed good fit. Greater contact with older adults was significantly related to less ageist attitudes, greater interest in work with older adults, and more empathy. Less ageist attitudes were significantly related to greater interest in clinical work with older adults. Greater empathy was significantly related to less ageist attitudes and greater multicultural competence, but to less interest in working with older adults. Empathy mediated the relation of contact to attitudes. Increasing positive contact with older adults as part of doctoral training in counseling and clinical psychology may enhance trainees’ empathy, attitudes toward older adults, and interest in work with older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Graduate psychology training
• attitudes toward older adults
• interest in gerocounseling
• contact with older adults
• workforce-training needs
• attitudes toward elderly persons
• contact theory
• gerocounseling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We received no funding for this study, and we have no competing interests to declare. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. An earlier version of this work was presented at the Gerontological Society of America’s 72^nd Annual Scientific Meeting (Caskie, Voelkner, & Sutton, 2020).