Understanding Cultural Competence from the Perspective of Registered Nurses Working in Community Health Care Settings
Date
2019-09-19
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Canada’s immigrant population has been growing steadily for decades, and, as a result, the health care system is attending to increasing numbers of patients from ethnically diverse backgrounds. With increased migration, culturally competent care from nurses has become an expectation to prevent cultural impositions and to foster respect for national diversity when providing effective patient care. Using descriptive phenomenology methodology, the purpose of this research is to describe the essence of cultural competence by exploring the strengths, challenges, and barriers that public health nurses face in community healthcare settings. The primary research question is: What are the lived experiences of nurses with respect to cultural competence? Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with seven nurses who work in community health clinics. This study suggests that there are inherent challenges to working with culturally and ethnically diverse populations. These include language barriers, limited cultural knowledge, and lack of organizational support which hinders the nurse-patient relationship. Cultural competence education for nurses working with ethnically diverse patient populations is neither mandatory nor readily available; as a result, nurses working in cross-cultural settings often have insufficient cultural knowledge and lack the cultural skills required to work cross-cultural situations. Professional development in the form of workshops and seminars is required on an on-going basis for nurses to develop their cultural awareness and skills. Cultural competence education should be a required aspect of the undergraduate nursing curriculum, as well as the in the workplace.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Anokye-Owusu, E. A. (2019). Understanding Cultural Competence from the Perspective of Registered Nurses Working in Community Health Care (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. Settings