This study aims to examine the association between nurses’ ageism and their knowledge about aging and socio-demographic and professional characteristics in recent international nursing research studies.
An extensive search of seven databases covering papers since 2000 was undertaken and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed.
Ageism among nurses is still poorly understood. It is evident that ageism is associated with poor nurses’ level of knowledge about aging. A range of nurses’ demographical and professional characteristics have been examined as potential predictors of ageism, but they were inconsistent with positive, negative and neutral associations.
There is a lack of robustly designed studies investigating the association of nurses’ level of knowledge about aging and their socio-demographical and professional characteristics to ageism. Future descriptive-correlational and interventional studies are recommended to understand and target ageism in health-care settings.
