Nursing students' experiences of caring for ethnically and culturally diverse patients. A scoping review

Little is known about nursing students' experiences of caring for patients from diverse cultures, which is an important factor in educational settings when it comes to understanding whether the teaching strategies applied are successful. Thus, the aim of this study was to conduct a scoping review of the literature, thereby synthesising existing studies to explore nursing students' experiences of caring for patients with different cultural backgrounds from theirs. A systematic article search was done in PubMed, CINAHL and ERIC. A total of 996 studies were found in the searches and finally seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were included. The analysis of the seven included studies was interpreted to represent two overarching themes, namely the challenge of communication and non-mutual language and the challenge of culture and culturally influenced behaviour, representing nursing students' experiences of caring for patients with a different cultural background from theirs. A major challenge for nursing educators appears to be creating pedagogical interventions that cultivate a humble, solicitous and caring curiosity among students, such that they do not perceive only challenges in caring for culturally diverse patients.