ABSTRACT
As the population demographics for the United States (U.S.) shift towards increasing diversity, it is essential that nurses provide culturally competent care. Cultural sensitivity has been identified as a major curricular element in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN) The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Thus it is imperative that nursing faculty use effective strategies to help nursing students develop cultural sensitivity and competence. Educational workshops focusing on cultural diversity are usually designed to increase people's cultural sensitivity. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a cultural diversity forum on nursing students' cultural sensitivity as measured by their openness to diversity. A convenience sample of students was recruited from a public university in the southeastern United States. The workshop was designed as a forum that combined a keynote presentation, shared meal, and a small group interactional activity. Cultural sensitivity was measured using the Openness to Diversity/Challenge Scale (ODCS), and was administered to students before and after the forum. A convenience sample of 47 students agreed to participate and completed both the pretest and posttest. Following the workshop, the students had more cultural sensitivity as measured by their scores on the ODCS (Wilcoxin Signed-Rank test z= -3.286, p = 0.001). The findings suggested that an educational format like the cultural diversity forum can promote students' cultural sensitivity. Further research needs to continue to focus on the effectiveness of strategies to increase the cultural sensitivity of baccalaureate nursing students.
Subject(s)
Attitude of Health Personnel/ethnology , Cultural Competency/education , Cultural Diversity , Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate/organization & administration , Minority Groups , Students, Nursing/psychology , Adult , Black or African American/education , Black or African American/ethnology , Cultural Competency/organization & administration , Curriculum , Female , Humans , Male , Minority Groups/education , Minority Groups/psychology , Nursing Education Research , Prejudice , Program Evaluation , Southeastern United States , Statistics, Nonparametric , Surveys and Questionnaires , Transcultural Nursing/education , Vulnerable Populations/ethnology , White People/education , White People/ethnologyABSTRACT
The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of a newly developed nurse admission, discharge, and teaching position on nurse satisfaction and the quality of the admission and discharge process. A pretest-posttest design was used to collect data on nurse satisfaction, workload, and medication reconciliation. Study results supported the use of an admission, discharge, and teaching nurse to improve nurse satisfaction and the quality of the admission and discharge process.
