Francine Jensen and Nyree-Dawn Nichols
Utah Valley University, USA
Title: Evaluating Cultural Competence in Undergraduate Nursing Students
Biography
Biography: Francine Jensen and Nyree-Dawn Nichols
Abstract
With increasing immigrants and expanding globalization in the US, enriching cultural competence among healthcare providers to deliver culturally appropriate care to diverse patients is in need. Nursing education has recognized the challenges for integrating components of cultural competence into curriculum and examining the effectiveness of teaching and learning of cultural competence in a nursing program. The purpose of this comparative quantitative study was to conduct an ongoing evaluation of cultural competence among undergraduate nursing students through an academic semester. A convenience sample of all undergraduate nursing students was recruited from a university by sending 210 email invitation letters for participation. The IAPCC-SV© tool developed in 2007 by Campinha-Bacote was used to evaluate the level of cultural competence including the five subscales of cultural awareness, cultural desire, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, and cultural encounters among undergraduate nursing students at the beginning and at the end of a semester, respectively. In total, 106 students were randomly selected and voluntarily participated in this study to complete the IAPCC-SV at the beginning of the semester and 86 out of the 106 students completed the IAPCC-SV at the end of the semester. All data using double entry were analyzed via independent t-test to identify the difference in cultural competence between the beginning and the end of the semester among undergraduate nursing students. The study results indicated that the undergraduate nursing students were culturally competent and had an increased cultural competence level at the end of the semester compared to the beginning of the semester. Although the participating students had increased scores in all five subscales, there were no significant differences between the beginning and the end of the semester. Cultural competence is on-going process. It is suggested that curriculum can offer more cultural encounters and practice to interact with diverse patients to increase student cultural competence.