Determining the effect of an intercultural nursing course on empathic skill and intercultural sensitivity levels: An...

Providing culturally sensitive healthcare services requires to command on content and concepts. Moreover, it is essential to train nurses who are sensitive toward cultural values and beliefs and who can provide holistic and individual nursing care in an increasingly diverse population.

This study determined the effect of the Intercultural Nursing Course on the empathic skill and intercultural sensitivity levels of nursing students in Turkey.

This study was an interventional study that adopted a pretest-posttest design with a control group.

The participants of the study were 165 nursing students from a school of health; these students were completing their fourth year of studies and in the spring term of the 2017-2018 academic year. However, the sample group comprised 113 students who agreed to participate in the study and completely filled out the administered forms. The intervention group consisted of 84 students admitted to Intercultural Nursing Course, whereas the control group consisted of 29 students who were not admitted to Intercultural Nursing Course.

Intercultural Nursing Course, one of the elective courses in the fourth grade of the nursing program, was a 14-week course that was conducted through two contact hours per week. Data from both the groups were collected at the beginning and at the end of the course by the researchers using the "Introductory Information Form," the "Empathic Skill Scale", and the "Intercultural Sensitivity Scale". Data were analyzed through descriptive tests, t-test, the Mann-Whitney U test, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test using statistical package software. In addition, the required approval was procured from the ethics committee of the relevant university and School of Health before the study was conducted.

No significant differences prevailed between the intervention and control groups in terms of total intragroup and intergroup Empathic Skill Scale and Intercultural Sensitivity Scale scores. However, a significant difference (Z = -4.000; p = 0.000) between the pretest and posttest scores was observed in the interaction confidence subdimension of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale in the intervention group.

Although Intercultural Nursing Course did not lead to a significant change in students' empathic skills and cultural sensitivity levels, it enhanced their cultural sensitivity and self-confidence in intercultural communication and ensured maintenance of their empathic skills. Intercultural Nursing Course can thus valuably contribute to the understanding of cultural structure and values of society and to the development of techniques that can provide nursing care accordingly.