Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33245506›Full record

ArticleEuropean geriatric medicine2021

An exploration of medical student attitudes towards older persons and frailty during undergraduate training.

Fergus McCarthy, Rebecca Winter, Tom Levett

Abstract read
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Article in European geriatric medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

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0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Ageism toward older adults among healthcare workers and students: A scoping review.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Fergus McCarthyBrighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, C/O BSMS Teaching Building, Brighton, BN1 9PX, East Sussex, UK. f.mccarthy1@bsms.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-3134-5621
Rebecca WinterDepartment of Medical Education, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, UK.
Tom LevettDepartment of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionOlder persons and patients with frailty constitute an ever increasing proportion of hospital patients. Improving student attitudes towards both groups is important in preparing future doctors for this demographic shift. We aimed to investigate medical student attitudes towards older persons and frailty over an entire medical school cohort.

methodsAll current Brighton and Sussex Medical School students were invited to complete an online questionnaire consisting: (i) the Australian Ageing Semantic Differential (AASD), (ii) the Medical Condition Regard Scale (MCRS) with regards to frailty, (iii) a qualitative question asking participants to record three words regarding both a person over 70 years and frailty.

results187 students participated (66% female, 25.2% response rate). Participants reported positive attitudes with mean scores of 73.45/114 on the AASD and 52.4/66 on the MCRS. The most positive attitudes towards both older persons and frailty were held by year 1 students, and most negative by year 3 and year 4 students for older persons and frailty, respectively. Examining AASD subgroups, students held negative attitudes towards the instrumentality (function) of older persons (mean score: 17.6/36) with significant variation across year groups (p < 0.05), with the most negative attitudes expressed in year 3. Word clouds of qualitative responses showed that medical students consider the two concepts differently with frailty attracting more negative associations.

conclusionGenerally medical student attitudes were positive towards older persons and frailty. However, these declined when focusing on the functionality, with word cloud analysis of attitudes revealing a dichotomy between the quantitative and qualitative data surrounding frailty.

Indexed as

FrailtyStudents, MedicalAgedAged, 80 and overAgingAttitude of Health PersonnelAustraliaFemaleHumansMaleAttitudesFrailtyMedical educationOlder persons

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.