Exploring mental health professionals’ attitudes towards ageing

Abstract

Ageism is a common attitude often present in various ways within society and social institutions, including in different healthcare settings. The main aim of this study was to explore the attitudes mental health professionals have towards ageing and older persons. Ageism has been found to have adverse effects on older clients in various ways, such as in decision making processes, treatment adherence, and in the therapeutic relationship. The data of this study was collected using three questionnaires. These set of questionnaires consisted of the demographic questions which included gender, age, profession sector, and highest level of education, the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (Fraboni et al., 1990), and the Contact with the Elderly Scale (Wisdom, 2005). Forty eight participants (N = 48) were recruited through the use of social media sources and consisted of mental health professionals who work in different profession sectors within different local mental health settings. The findings of this study showed that the mental health professionals exhibited different levels of ageism in their clinical practices, with the highest score being that of one hundred and twelve. Demographic differences such as profession sector differences were found in terms of ageism. On the other hand, age group differences were found in the assistive and communicative encounters that these mental health professionals had with older persons. No significant association was found between the Fraboni Scale of Ageism and the Contact with the Elderly Scale. Therefore, how often a mental health professional assists and communicates with older persons did not affect the different levels of ageism found in this study. Future research was recommended with regards to exploring ageism among general healthcare settings and including healthcare professionals working in these type of settings since this study solely focused on mental health professionals working in different mental health settings. In line with the findings of this study, raising more awareness and the implementation of various policies in tackling ageism within different mental health settings would be beneficial to the therapeutic relationship between the provider and older client, to the treatment adherence, and in the inclusion in any type of decision making concerning the older client.