Educating nursing students for cultural competence in emergencies: a randomized controlled trial

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine

Background:

• Racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately affected by disasters.
• Need for culturally competent healthcare, especially in emergency settings.
• Limited systematic cultural competence training in medical education.

Purpose of the Study:

• Examine the effectiveness of an online culturally informed intervention.
• Increase cultural competence in emergencies among nursing students.
• Evaluate impact across attitudes, knowledge, skills, and encounters.

Main Methods:

• Randomized controlled trial with 72 undergraduate nursing students.
• Intervention group (n=34) vs. control group (n=38).
• Multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures and Bonferroni correction.

Main Results:

• Intervention significantly increased culturally competent knowledge.
• Effect on skills domain approached statistical significance.
• No significant group differences in attitudes or encounters.

Conclusions:

• Online intervention effectively enhanced the cognitive aspect of cultural competence (knowledge).
• Intervention did not significantly improve attitudes, skills, or encounters.
• Future programs should integrate local values and needs for greater impact.