Why cultural competence matters in nursing

Nurses must be able to connect with patients from diverse backgrounds if we are to make healthcare more equitable. Sarah Harrop explores the importance of cultural competence in nursing.
Culture is part of what it is to be human. It can be defined as a pattern of learned beliefs, values, and behaviour that are shared within a group, such as those within a community, a region or a country. It includes our language, styles of communication, practices, sets of assumptions, customs, and views on roles and relationships.
When faced with a different culture to our own, psychologists have observed that it negatively affects the ways in which a person makes sense of the world and how they respond to it. As a result, we can’t accurately perceive, interpret, explain, and predict the behaviour of people with a different cultural background, says psychologist Olga Muzychenko.
That’s why cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity are must-have skills for modern nursing practice, in order to care for the diverse patient populations that nurses will come across every day within the healthcare system. This is particularly important for nurses because research shows that they spend more time in direct patient care than other medical staff.
“Changing demographics make it necessary to prepare nurses to better meet the healthcare needs of patients from different cultural backgrounds,” says Sue Turale of Chang Mai University. “Cultural diversity in healthcare requires healthcare professionals to be aware of cultural needs and provide culturally appropriate healthcare.”
What is cultural competence and why is it essential for nursing?
Cultural competence is a person’s ability to effectively interact with people from cultures that are different from their own. In nursing, this is a vital skill to make sure that everyone receives equal, patient-centred care, regardless of their cultural background.
According to Maura Deering, in an article for NurseJournal, there are four aspects to culturally competent nursing care:
- Awareness: self-knowledge of caregivers’ own implicit biases and stereotyping of certain groups and how they react to people from different backgrounds.
- Attitudes: a nurse’s active analysis of their own background, beliefs, and values can help them to better understand how they interact with others, and how those interactions might be improved to build better connections with patients.
- Knowledge: of the values, cultural beliefs, and practices associated with the health and wellbeing of various cultural groups. This might involve learning about local and traditional healthcare networks and systems, as well as the unique patient needs of the communities they serve.
- Cross-cultural skills: by repeating culturally competent behaviours until they are integrated into daily interactions, nurses can become empowered to use more respectful and effective communication and body language across different cultures.
Some benefits of culturally competent care
One major benefit of cultural competence in nursing is that it has potential to tackle some of the inequalities in patient care and overall health.
A patient’s culture – including their ethnicity and race, gender, age, class, education, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities – can be linked to disparities in health equity and healthcare, with worse patient outcomes in some groups than others.
For example, research and analysis by the Health Foundation has shown that in England, even after accounting for the different age distributions across ethnicities, there are higher levels of diagnosed poor health among minority ethnic backgrounds than for people from White ethnic groups.
There are often complex and interlinked reasons behind such health disparities. For example, someone who is unemployed may be less able to afford fresh, healthy food, live further from green spaces where they can exercise and may live in poorer quality accommodation, all of which contribute to them having worse health outcomes than other people.
What is more, people from more disadvantaged population demographics are also more likely to find it harder to get access to medical care. This might be down to factors such as lower availability of services in their area; spoken and written language barriers (if English isn’t their first language); bad past patient experiences of healthcare; or incorrect health beliefs or misinformation (e.g. ‘anti-vax’ messages causing fear of vaccination).
Cultural awareness and inclusivity in nursing, along with culturally sensitive communication skills, can play a strong role in combating some of these disparities in healthcare and people’s access to it.
Understanding and respecting a patient’s cultural beliefs, values and behaviours can also lead to greater patient satisfaction says Nursing Education:
“This understanding fosters trust and strengthens the nurse-patient relationship. Patients are more likely to adhere to medical recommendations, share necessary health information, and have better overall satisfaction with their care when they trust you as their healthcare provider.”
How to improve cultural competence in nursing practice
Research shows that training programs can be an effective way to develop cultural competence in nurses in clinical practice. A literature review of papers published from 2011 to 2021 showed that face-to-face training, simulation training and web-based learning are all effective for increasing the cultural competence of nurses.
Also shown to be effective were:
- workshops to shape culturally sensitive attitudes
- intensive and in-depth interactions with patients from different cultures
- broadening nurses’ knowledge of cultural issues
- intercultural communication training
- overcoming language barriers and using interpreters in clinical practice
- including in training the cultural challenges and concerns of nurses and patients, within the context of healthcare.
One 2016 paper included in the review reported that cultural competencies develop through internal reflection and awareness over time.
The review concludes that this training benefits both nurses and patients:
“Cultural competence training greatly benefits nurses since it improves nurse–patient communication; however, it also benefits patients from different cultural backgrounds via improved healthcare and feelings of greater acceptance in society.”
Take your nursing career to the next level
The 100% online MSc Nursing at Queen Margaret’s University is for professionally registered nurses from across the world who want to broaden their understanding of their role as registered nurses, learning in different contexts, and conducting master's-level study and research in their specific area of practice. Study on this MSc nursing degree and you’ll deepen and develop your professional practice and demonstrate your understanding as a socially conscious, critically creative, reflexive and evidence-based practitioner. The master’s degree will also prepare you to pursue future doctoral study in a wide range of international settings. Furthermore, you’ll have the freedom and flexibility to study from anywhere, any time, with no need to ever attend campus. Find out more
The information below is required for social login
Login to your Account
JOIN FOR FREE
Let’s begin with setting up your account to keep track of your progress