International Journal of Health Sciences & Research (www.ijhsr.org) 248 Vol.5; Issue: 11; November 2015 International Journal of Health Sciences and Research www.ijhsr.org ISSN: 2249-9571 Original Research Article Attitude towards the Elderly among Healthcare Related Students in Malaysia Panmial P. Damulak, Halimatus S. Minhat, Anita A. Rahman Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra, Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. Corresponding Author: Halimatus S. Minhat Received: 28/05/2015 Revised: 24/06/2015 Accepted: 05/10/2015 ABSTRACT The focus of this study was to determine the attitude towards the elderly among healthcare related students in Malaysia. The Cross-sectional survey design (CSD) was used for the study. A total of 63 nursing students and 456 medicine students were drawn by stratified random sampling from University Putra Malaysia. Data was collected using a validated modified standard questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic characteristics, Kogan‟s Attitude Towards Old People Scale, Facts on Ageing Quiz 2, filial responsibility questionnaire, experience living with elderly questions as well as questions on exposure to geriatric module. Data generated were subjected to statistics of frequency count, percentage and chi-square. The results showed that the mean attitude score was 37.82± 5.641 with overall attitude being negative (52.0%). Mean filial score was 30.10±5.387, and students had low filial responsibility (53.0%), although there was no exposure to geriatric module (54.1%), nevertheless students had a good knowledge of ageing (74%), 70.3% are currently living with the elderly while 74.0% previously lived with the elderly. Furthermore, there was significant association between attitude towards the elderly and filial responsibility ( 2 = 44.599, p = 0.001), age ( 2 = 11.518, p = 0.042) and year of study ( 2 = 12.699, p = 0.031). Consequently, it was concluded that the attitude towards the elderly is significantly associated with low filial responsibility, age, year of study and nursing home visit with the recommendation that geriatric components should be improved and included at every stage of healthcare professional training. Keywords: Attitude, elderly; filial responsibility; geriatric module. INTRODUCTION Population ageing is one of the most important events occurring in the 21st century, and it happens to be a by- product of population transition; demographers posit that every country will go through the four stages of transition of fertility and mortality. [1] The end of the 20 th century brought about decrease in birth rates and increase in life expectancy especially in developed countries, leading to population ageing. [2] The increasing trend in older population globally has not left Malaysia behind, and seems to be associated with modernization. [1] In Malaysia, the population is ageing and is conjectured to become an aged nation by 2030, by then 15 per cent of the population will be classified as elderly. [3] There are indications that senior age population of 60 years and above which is still small, will increase thereby actualizing into an ageing population as evidence by the increasing medium age, dependency ratio