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Understanding Nursing Students' Attitudes And Knowledge In Caring For People With Disabilities, Cassidy Kaczor, Ashley Mcdanald

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

This study focused on exploring the knowledge, attitudes, and comfort level of undergraduate nursing students in caring for people with disabilities (PWD). Inclusion of disability content in nursing curricula is limited. Smeltzer and colleagues (2010) discovered an absence of disability-related content in pre-licensure nursing textbooks. PWDs have indicated four areas of concern regarding their care by nursing staff: poor communication, lack of competence, negative attitudes, and quality of care received. We hypothesized, if education on the health care of PWD and standardized patient experiences are implemented into nursing school curriculum then nursing students will have an increase in knowledge and …