Impact of Cultural Competence Educational Learning Unit Intervention on First-semester Junior Bachelor of Science Nursing Students

Research evidence strongly suggests that there is a direct relationship between a lack of cultural competence in healthcare providers and health care disparities in diverse racial, ethnic, and socio-cultural groups of people. Nursing education curricula designed to educate nurses in the process of becoming culturally competent may have a significant impact on inequity in healthcare delivery. This study examined how entry level nursing students responded to a cultural competence educational learning unit (CCELU) to improve their level of cultural competence in desire, awareness, knowledge, skill, and encounters. A one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance and an independent t-test were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the CCELU intervention between the treatment and control groups. Content analyses of students’ journals were performed to determine emerging themes during their hospital clinical experience. The findings in this study revealed that students who received the CCELU intervention scored higher on the IAPCC-R on all five constructs (cultural desire, awareness, knowledge, skill, encounters,) and the instructor developed-post-test. The highest scores were evidenced in cultural desire with an effect size (d = 1.15), Encounter (d = 1.15) and Skills (d = 0.88). Findings on the instructor- developed post-test had a large effect size (d = 1.04). Content analyses of a few students’ journals showed some evidence of cultural competence language that was consistent with Campinha-Bacote’s culturally competent framework. Recommendations are provided for nursing educators, program leaders and researchers in Chapter 5