Cultural competence assessment in a health-care university

Abstract

Introduction: Cultural competence of health-care professionals has a vital role in health-care system. The first step toward this orientation is the assessment of cultural competence level of clinical graduate students. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the cultural competence of clinical graduate students of various courses in a health-care university, Kerala, India. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 398 clinical graduate students in a health-care university in Kerala, India. The self-administered questionnaire had 27 items adapted from various validated scales. Data analysis was done by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SPSS software (version 23). P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The overall mean of the responses ranged from 2.81 (confidence interval [CI]: 2.70–2.93) to 4.50 (CI: 4.43–4.57). ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences between the courses in competencies related to specific competencies. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that cultural competence of health-care graduates can be improved by incorporating cultural competence training in the curriculum.

Keywords

• cultural competency
• culturally competent care
• curriculum
• health occupation students
• india