Dementia behaviors that undergraduates find distressing and the relationship to personality traits, ageism, and dementia knowledge

Our aim was twofold: 1) determine the characteristics of those who hold stigmatizing beliefs toward persons with dementia and 2) identify which dementia-related behaviors are most likely to be stigmatized. Questionnaires were administered to 298 undergraduate students. Participants read a vignette of a woman displaying six dementia-related behaviors and asked to what degree each behavior was distressing. Participants provided information on their age, sex-at-birth, gender, socioeconomic and marital statuses. Correlations were examined between personality traits, time spent with a person with dementia, knowledge about dementia, ageism, and stigmatization of dementia. ANOVAs were conducted to assess differences in levels of distress elicited across the six dementia-related behaviors exhibited in the vignette and across the three components of the stigmatization scale. Ageist beliefs and stigmatizing beliefs were positively associated. More time spent with persons with dementia as well as higher levels of Conscientiousness and Extraversion predicted lower levels of ageist beliefs. Aggression and poor hygiene were judged to be significantly more upsetting to participants than poor memory and confusion. The association between ageist beliefs and stigmatizing beliefs suggests that education programs should provide information about normal aging in addition to information about dementia.