Comparison of Japanese Nurses' and Care Workers' Scores on the Dialogue Preference Scales for Elderly (DPSE)

This study compared nurses’ and care workers’ scores on the Dialogue Preference Scales for Elderly (DPSE) created from data from nursing students in Japan. For this forward-looking, quantitative, questionnairebased study, data collection was conducted from 2010 to 2012 with care seminar participants in Japan. Participants were nurses (n = 277; 36.96 ± 10.33 years old, males; 4.33% females; 95.66%) and care workers (n = 83; 40.52 ± 11.68 years old, males; 25.30% females; 74.69). The samples varied significantly in mean age (p < 0.05) and gender (p < 0.001). The number of years of experience was 139.94 for nurses with SD = 10.99 and 90.99 for care workers with SD = 45.44 (p < 0.001). Data were gathered using the 15-item Dialogue Preference Scales for Elderly (DPSE or Shimizu scale), which assesses nurses’ negative cognition and attitude tendencies during their conversations with elderly individuals [1]. The DPSE measures attributes and the four sub-concepts of bewilderment, anxiety, cognitive bias, and communication difficulty. Higher scores indicate more negative cognitions or attitudes (maximum score: 28). Data were descriptively analyzed using Pearson’s χ2 test and student’s t test of confirmatory factors. Nurses’ total scores (mean; 57.31, SD = 11.84) were not significantly different than care worker’s scores (mean; 57.58, SD = 12.25), indicating that nurses, and care workers had a similar view of communicating with older people. However, the sub-concept of cognitive bias was significantly lower for nurses, as they likely had higher levels of ageism (p < 0.10). Additionally, the communication difficulty sub-concept also was significantly higher for nurses, possibly because they had been caring for much older patients with more severe illnesses (p < 0.01).