Challenging behaviour in older people: nurses' attitudes.

: An investigation was undertaken to look at nurses' attitudes to challenging behaviour in hospitalised older adults. It was predicted that nurses would make internal rather than external or medical attributions for challenging behaviour and that negative emotions towards the patient would result in negative responses, for example, reprimanding the patient. Findings revealed that nurses did not make significantly more internal rather than external or medical attributions, and that no significant differences were associated with age or grade (p > 0.05). A correlation coefficient showed that negative emotions were associated with an internal attribution style (r = .40, p < 0.005). A simple regression analysis revealed that negative behaviour could be significantly predicted from negative emotion (f = 10.68, p < 0.01). The research concludes that efforts should be made to reduce negative effect via staff training and that further research should focus upon staff and patient interactions within real life settings.