Cultural Competence in Pediatrics: Health Care Provider Knowledge, Awareness, and Skills

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Pediatric Healthcare
• Cultural Competence

Background:

• Diverse pediatric patient populations require culturally competent care.
• Healthcare providers' cultural awareness, preparedness, and skills are crucial for effective patient care.
• Existing training programs need evaluation for their impact on provider competency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of a cultural competence training (CCT) program.
• To measure changes in pediatric health care providers' self-reported cultural competence.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of CCT on knowledge, awareness, and skills in diverse pediatric care.

Main Methods:

• Quantitative, nested ecologic study design with pre-test and post-test measures.
• Paired t-tests or Wilcoxon's signed-rank tests used for data analysis.
• Sample included 69 pediatric health care providers (physicians and nurses) in a hospital setting.

Main Results:

• A 13% increase in knowledge (p = 0.001) and an 8.7% increase in awareness (p = 0.002) were observed.
• An 8% statistically marginal increase in skills was noted (p = 0.06).
• CCT significantly enhanced knowledge and awareness among providers.

Conclusions:

• Cultural competence training is effective in enhancing pediatric health care providers' knowledge and awareness.
• CCT positively impacts providers' ability to care for culturally diverse pediatric patients.
• Further development of CCT may further improve provider skills in culturally competent care.