PREDICTORS OF COLLEGE-STUDENTS KNOWLEDGE OF AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ELDERLY SEXUALITY - THE RELEVANCE OF GRANDPARENTAL CONTACT

In this study, 241 young and middle-aged adult college students comple ted the Aging Sexuality Knowledge and Attitude Scale, and provided inf ormation about their demographic and grandparental relationship qualit ies. Findings showed that greater age was associated with increased kn owledge of elderly sexuality. Both the presence of contact and greater than average perceptions of closeness with at least one grandparent w ere predictive of more permissive attitudes toward elderly sexuality. Among the total sample, greater knowledge was related to more permissi ve attitudes toward elderly sexuality. However, the presence of contac t with at least one grandparent moderated this relationship; young adu lts without grandparental contact presented a nonsignificant knowledge /attitude relationship. These findings suggest that future studies of younger age cohorts' attitudes toward elderly sexuality should assess grandparental contact and relationship characteristics, as well as gen eral demographic information such as chronological age. Health-care ed ucators also may need to reconsider the commonly held assumption that greater knowledge of elderly sexuality is associated exclusively with more permissive attitudes.