Evaluating cultural competence in undergraduate nursing students

19^th Global Nursing Education Conference

April 27-28, 2017 Las Vegas, USA

Francine B Jensen, Nyree Dawn Nichols, Hsiu-Chin Chen, Sean Bennett, Gary Measom, Adam Anderton and Linda Wiggins

Utah Valley University, USA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

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.

Biography :

Francine B. Jensen is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Utah Valley University where she teaches at the associate and bachelors levels. Prior to teaching, Ms. Jensen spent eight years in gastrointestinal, telemetry, emergency and trauma nursing at the University of Virginia Medical Center, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Inova Fairfax Level I Trauma Center. She has presented at international nursing conferences in Tallin, Estonia, and the Netherlands. Her research interests center around interpersonal relationships in nursing and ways to improve engagement for students in the classroom. She received her Masters from George Mason University and is a current doctoral student.

Email: Francine.Jensen@uvu.edu

Nyree-Dawn Nichols has been a nurse for 12 years. Her medical background has been in Emergency Medicine, Trauma and Critical Care. She has 5 years fulltime teaching experience. Teaching students has been very rewarding and her passion for teaching grows continually. She is married with 4 children and loves being a mom.

Email: Nyree-Dawn.Nichols@uvu.edu