Cultural competence in nursing is defined as a nurse’s ability to provide care that considers patients’ cultural needs, while assessing how personal cultural influences affect their interactions with patients. It helps enhance patient outcomes, reduce health disparities and build trust. Cultural competency has four components: awareness, attitude, knowledge and skills.
Nurses encounter patients from all walks of life in their practice. Sometimes a patient’s religion or values will influence their health care choices. Some patients won’t accept blood transfusions, while others opt for natural remedies over medicinal ones.
As a nurse, it will be your responsibility to consider how one’s culture influences their health decisions and reflect on how your own culture influences your interactions. This is so important that cultural competence in nursing is included in the nursing code of ethics.
At Harding University, students in the accelerated Bachelor of Science in nursing program learn to provide culturally competent and holistic patient care. The online-based hybrid program allows students with a non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 64 college credits to earn a Bachelor of Science in nursing in as few as 16 months, preparing them to take the NCLEX-RN exam.
Cultural competence is crucial to the nursing profession; however, it takes time to develop and become skilled in it. Nurses must familiarize themselves with the components of cultural competence and learn to respect how one’s culture influences their choices.
Why is Cultural Competence in Nursing Important?
Cultural competence in nursing involves understanding patients’ cultural backgrounds, beliefs and values to provide effective and respectful care. Health care settings are diverse; people from all backgrounds will seek care at some point in their lives. It’s the responsibility of health care professionals to understand and respond to cultural differences and provide holistic care. They must also do the same with their professional peers so they can collaborate and work as a team.
Cultural competence in nursing helps to do the following:
Enhance Patient Outcomes
When patients feel respected, they are more likely to comply with treatment plans and feel empowered in their healing process. For example, some cultures and religious beliefs require patients to be treated only by providers who are the same sex as them, unless it’s an emergency. Accommodating this need when possible can make patients more open to treatment.
By acknowledging these differences, nurses can create tailored care plans that consider cultural preferences, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes and satisfaction.
Reduce Health Disparities
Health disparities are the differences in health outcomes linked to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, class, education or disability. By being culturally aware, nurses can identify and address the unique health needs of diverse patient populations, reducing inequities in health care access and quality.
For example, a study on the maternal mortality rates in the U.S. found that the mortality rate for Black non-Hispanic women is significantly higher than the rates for white, Hispanic and Asian women. Exercising cultural competence in nursing requires nurses to understand that disparities such as these exist, so they can meet patients with compassion, advocate for them and connect them to resources to ensure they receive the highest quality of care.
Build Trust and Respect
Nurses who demonstrate cultural competence establish stronger relationships with their patients. This trust and respect encourage open communication, making patients more likely to share information about their health. Advocating for a medical interpreter to bridge language barriers or a kosher meal for Jewish patients are a couple of ways nurses can build trust between patients and care teams.
Increase Professional Satisfaction
Cultural competence not only benefits patients but also enhances nurses’ professional satisfaction. When nurses feel equipped to handle diverse patients with confidence and empathy, they experience greater job fulfillment and motivation. Cultural competency enables nurses and other health care staff to collaborate more effectively across diverse cultural backgrounds.
Learn what other essential nursing skills you’ll need for success in your career.
What are Some Examples of Culturally Competent Nursing Care?
Nurses can demonstrate cultural competence in many ways. Specific actions, such as allowing patients the privacy to put on a head covering or pray, can go a long way in building comfort and trust. While specifics vary across patient populations, nurses can demonstrate general cultural competence by:
- Accommodating dietary needs
- Actively listening to patient requests
- Avoiding stereotypes
- Being intentional with word choice and non-verbal cues so patients feel more comfortable
- Respecting how culture influences medical decisions, even if you disagree with patients’ choices
The Components of Cultural Competence in Nursing
Developing cultural competence involves four key components: awareness, attitude, knowledge and skills. Nursing students and professionals must understand these elements to provide holistic care.
Awareness
Nurses must exercise cultural awareness by recognizing their own cultural influences and biases and how these factors can affect patient care. They must be willing to learn from their patients about cultural nuances and respect their perspectives and choices.
By understanding cultural differences and maintaining awareness of personal influences, nurses can lay the groundwork for trusting relationships with patients.
Attitude
The next step in providing culturally competent nursing care is to maintain an open and respectful attitude toward all cultures. After gaining awareness of their own cultural influences, nurses must be able to recognize how these influences affect their interactions with others and their approach to cultural differences.
Knowledge
Cultural competence in nursing requires learning about different cultural practices and perspectives. This includes understanding how cultural and religious beliefs can influence medical decisions. For example, many religions establish guidelines for diet, medications, medical procedures, modesty and more.
Nurses must always be willing to learn, so they can meet their patients with empathy and navigate delicate conversations. They must avoid making assumptions based on cultural stereotypes and approach each patient with respect and an open mind.
Cultural Skills
Cultural competence in nursing takes time to cultivate. Nurses must practice their communication skills, non-verbal cues and active listening techniques. Many cultural considerations in nursing may not be immediately apparent to those unfamiliar with them, such as the importance of modesty for certain patients. Nurses must be skilled communicators so they can ask questions and seek guidance from mentors.
Strategies to Improve Cultural Competence in Nursing
Improving cultural competence in nursing is an ongoing process. No matter where you are in your nursing journey, whether a student or 20 years into your career, there is always something new to learn.
Nurses can utilize several strategies to deliver culturally competent patient care.
Engage in Continuing Education
Nurses must be lifelong learners. Whether they are studying the latest in evidence-based practices or participating in cultural competence workshops, continuing education is critical to the profession. Many workshops, conferences and online courses offer valuable insights into cultural dynamics and provide guidance on how nurses can bridge cultural gaps.
Some nurses even learn another language to serve their patients better. While medical interpretation should be reserved for professional interpreters, being able to converse with patients in their native language can help patients feel safe and comfortable in what otherwise could be a very stressful and confusing environment.
Become Active Listeners
Active listening requires you to fully engage with the speaker through nodding and other non-verbal cues, asking follow-up questions, avoiding interruptions and summarizing to ensure you fully understand. This is essential for all patient interactions, especially when English isn’t a patient’s native language.
Active listening can help create a safe environment for open communication. When patients feel comfortable with their nurses and know they will advocate for them, they’re more likely to voice their cultural needs and preferences, helping improve the quality of care.
Self-Reflect and Seek Feedback
Regular self-reflection and obtaining feedback from peers or mentors can help nurses identify areas for improvement in their journey toward cultural competence. Understanding personal biases and being open to change is essential to delivering culturally competent care.
Ready to take the first step toward becoming a nurse? Learn how Harding’s ABSN program in Arkansas can help you earn a nursing degree fast.
Learn Core Nursing Skills at Harding University
At the heart of cultural competence is the concept of patient-centered care. By focusing on patients’ individual needs and respecting their cultural backgrounds, nurses can provide care that aligns with their values and preferences.
At Harding University, ABSN students learn to care for the whole person: mind, body and spirit. Through a hybrid, values-based curriculum, students participate in online coursework and hands-on labs and clinicals, laying the groundwork to become practice-ready nurses. Working alongside professional nurses and health care providers in various clinical settings, students gain rich experiences caring for diverse patient populations.
Contact an admissions counselor today to learn how the ABSN program can help you take the first step toward becoming a nurse.