[01] Kanchana Sai, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Melaka, Malaysia. [02] Iffah Madihah Binti Mohammed, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Melaka, Malaysia. [03] Thilini Piumika Tennakoon, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Melaka, Malaysia. [04] Chelse Dua Daud, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Melaka, Malaysia.

Geriatric care has an important role in the population due to the increase in the number of older people. This geriatric care correlates with knowledge and attitudes among medical students. We investigated factors affecting medical students’ knowledge and attitudes towards geriatric care and association between sociodemographic factors and the perception of the medical students towards the elderly and their care is done. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 125 undergraduate medical students in Melaka Manipal Medical College for this cross sectional study using Facts on Aging Quiz 1 (FAQ1) and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Geriatric Attitudes Scale as too. Among 125 undergraduate medical students, the mean knowledge percentage was 58%, thus giving a standard deviation of 10%. While the mean for attitudes score was 51.69 out of 70, thus giving standard deviation of 6.47. Majority of the medical students had a moderate knowledge and positive attitudes towards geriatric care. Students who had experience in taking care of the elderly and exposure to the geriatric medicine had significantly higher attitude scores (P < 0.05). The majority of medical students involved in this study had positive attitudes towards the elderly, however, they lack related knowledge about the elderly and aging.

Knowledge, Attitudes, Elderly People, Medical Students, Malaysia

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