| Abstract: | Background:
The aging population is increasing rapidly everywhere in the world, Taiwan is no exception. Taiwan has become an aging society since September of 1993. Second to Japan, the proportion of aging population in Taiwan is at the second place in Asia. Furthermore, the increasing rate of aging has been the highest in the whole world. National Development Council of Central Government has estimated that Taiwan would become a hyper-aged society around Year 2025. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that there would be 30% of the elderly population living in the city by Year 2030. Therefore, we are obliged not only to provide well healthcare to the elderly, but also to create age-friendly environment to live in actively for them. The voices of college students will be the main stream in Taiwan’s society, therefore, our study aimed to analyze the attitude and assistance willingness of college students toward the elderly from eight aged-friendly perspectives proposed by WHO.
Aims
There are three aims in this study: (1) to understand the of college students toward shaping the age-friendly environment; (2) to understand the assistance willingness of college students toward the elderly; (3) to analyze the reason of friendly attitude expressed by college students grown up in different background and experience interacting with the elderly in the past.
Methods:
The web-based, self-administered questionnaire is adopted as the measurement instrument in this study. The research subjects are college students accessible to surf the internet (such as PTT and facebook). The contents of the questionnaire included basic information of respondent, the attitude and assistance willingness of the respondent toward the elderly from eight aged-friendly essential features proposed by WHO. After 2 weeks posted on website, we collected 390 valid questionnaires totally. The SPSS for Window version 18 was employed as statistical tool to carry out descriptive, bivariate, and multi-linear regression analyses.
Results:
Overall, college students showed positive attitude towards shaping the age-friendly environment. They showed more concerns on “outdoor spaces and building” improvement for the elderly and less on “communication and information”. The influencing factors included “female”, “had interested in aging-related courses”, “had experience in taking aging-related courses”, and “had volunteer experience in geriatric services”. In addition, the study showed that college students were willing to help the elderly more in “transportation” situation and less in “social participation”. The influencing factors included “female”,“had interested in aging-related courses”, “had spent more time with elderly family members”, and“had volunteer experience in geriatric services”. Family education, including verbal and behavioral discipline, also helps college students to indoctrinate their age-friendly attitude. Thus, to build age-friendly environment, we suggest: (1) The school administration could open more courses related to aging agenda and volunteer opportunities to serve the elderly; (2) More elderly Respect could be indoctrinated into family education, in both verbal and behavioral ways. |
