Cultural competence of nursing students at a public university in Colombia

Introduction: Diversity is a challenge in healthcare because it requires nurses to be culturally competent and able to provide care adapted to the beliefs, values, and practices of patients from diverse cultures. Objective: To determine the level of cultural competence of nursing students at a public university in Colombia. Materialsand Methods: Quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study. The Chilean Spanish version of the Cultural Competence Scale, previously validated in Colombia, was used for data collection. The sample consisted of 148 nursing students enrolled from the third to the eighth semester during the period from August to December 2021. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed using the Mann-Whitney U and the Kruskal-Wallis H tests. Results: The average score (square:72.3) obtained by the nursing students indicates moderate levels of cultural competence. Significant differences were found in the level of competence regarding previous training (p < 0.05) and experience in caring for patients from diverse cultures (p < 0.05). Discussion: Participants in this study showed levels of cultural competence similar to those found in research conducted with nursing students in other countries, such as South Korea, India, South Africa, Iraq, and Chile, among other countries. Conclusions: The level of cultural competence of nursing students enables them to provide safe, humane, empathetic, effective, and culturally coherent actions to patients.