Does the cultural awareness of nurses affect brain drain and xenophobia?

Turkey is on the transit route of immigrants as it is located between countries where poverty and wars are intense and European countries. Therefore, there are countless immigrants from different countries in Turkey. Migrations affect every sector, especially the health sector. The aim of this study was to determine how cultural awareness of nurses, who are the cornerstone of the health system, affects brain drain and xenophobia. The problem of health care is not only on the agenda of immigrants, but also on the agenda of health service providers in their countries due to economic and working conditions.

This research was designed as descriptive and relationship-seeking.

The data of the research were collected through Google Forms between December 5 and 26, 2022. A total of 231 nurses working in a public hospital in south-east Turkey participated in the study. Data were evaluated with descriptive statistics as well as reliability, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis.

It was determined that the attitudes of the participants towards brain drain were moderate, their cultural awareness was low and their xenophobic attitudes were high. In addition, it was determined that 44% of the change in the total score obtained from the intercultural awareness scale was explained by the scores obtained from the xenophobia and brain drain scales.

In this context, it may be possible to reduce xenophobic attitudes by giving intercultural awareness trainings to nurses. In addition, it is important to provide working conditions and economic support by health policy makers to prevent the brain drain of nurses.

Nurses may need to provide care for individuals from different cultures due to the regions in which they live. For this reason increasing their cultural awareness and reducing xenophobia may ensure that they provide improved care to their patients.