Abstract:
Elderly patients comprise an increasing of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions. So, the great importance to focus on attitudes of critical care nurses, those who give a direct care to the elderly patients and their positive attitudes towards elders and adequate knowledge care would improve the quality of care. Aim: to assess ageism in ICU, critical care nurse's knowledge, attitude and advocacy toward caring for critically ill elderly patients. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional design. Setting 9 ICU at Aswan city hospital. Subjects: A purposive sample 114 nurses. Tools were used to collect data; socio-demographic data of critical care nurses, the Ageism Attitude Scale (AAS), protective nursing advocacy scale and a self-administered knowledge questionnaire. Results: Highest percentage of study subjects had low levels of attitude regarding positive ageism domain and total ageism score (93%) and (59.6%) respectively. (79.8 %) have good knowledge, and a majority of study subjects had a moderate level of advocacy. Conclusion: the non-significantly relationship between nurses' knowledge, attitudes toward ageism and geriatric patient advocacy behaviors. Recommendations: continuing education for a critical care nurses caring for elderly, especially in ICU in order to enforce positive attitudes towards elderly and improve behaviors by increasing their knowledge