The Role of Attachment Styles and Communication Skills in Predicting Nursing and Medical Students’ Perception of Elder Abuse

Abstract

Background

The knowledge and abilities of nurses and physicians in perceiving and dealing with abuse are necessary for the improvement of older people’s health. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of attachment styles and communication skills in predicting nursing and medical students’ perception of elder abuse in Yazd, Iran.

Methods

The present study was a descriptive cross-sectional design that was conducted in the form of multistage sampling on 397 nursing and medical students at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd, Iran. The Elderly Caregiving Questionnaire (ECQ), Adults’ Attachment Styles Inventory (AAI), and the revised version of the Communication Skills Questionnaire were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using the SPSS version 22 software.

Results

The findings revealed that the participants had an appropriate understanding of elder abuse. The highest level of perception of elder abuse was in the dimension of psychological abuse (24.5± 5.22) and the lowest level was related to the dimension of physical abuse (21.7± 4.74). Additionally, a positive significant relationship was found between the score of students’ perception of abuse, and secure and avoidant attachment styles as well as students’ communication skills (p<0.01). According to regression analysis, these predictors explained 8.6% of the observed variance in the students’ perception of elder abuse.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that attachment styles influenced the individual’s perception of elder abuse. Therefore, in future planning and research, this should be given more attention.

Keywords:

• elder abuse
• perception
• student
• nursing
• medical
• attachment styles
• communication

Acknowledgment

The researchers would like to express their gratitude to the students who participated in this study and collaborated in the production of this article.

Disclosure

The authors have declared that they had no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

The present paper was one part of the Master’s research project by Ammar Salehi and was funded by Vice Chancellor for Research of Shiraz University of Medical Science (SUMS).