Introduction:

The attitude is a predictor of behavior, therefore, having negative attitude and perception about old age can influence the care that university students could give when providing health services.

Objective:

Assess by gender the attitudes and perceptions towards female and male aging in students of nursing degree program in Zacatecas, Mexico.

Methodology:

Descriptive design with comparison according to gender in 262 undergraduate nursing students from a public university; students assigned to a subject related to care for the elderly and who voluntarily gave their consent to participate were considered. The Kogan Scale of Attitudes towards the Elderly and the Osgood Semantic Differential Questionnaire were applied.

Results:

70.6% of the participants were female, with an average age of 21.4 years, SD =2.87, and 93.9% had a positive attitude towards the elderly. In female aging, women reflected more negative perceptions than men in the categories productive-unproductive, healthy-unhealthy, tolerant-intolerant, efficient-inefficient, treatable-intractable, active-inactive citizen, integrated-marginalized, trusting-mistrusting and valued-undervalued. Habitual coexistence and previous training represented a significant statistical difference regarding the perception of tolerance-intolerance, integration-marginalization and resiliency-fragility with p<.05.

Conclusions:

Most of the nursing students showed a positive attitude towards the elderly. When comparing by gender the aging type either in male or female participants, some understanding indicated a more negative appreciation on the part of women compared to men.