Effects of a cultural competence education programme on clinical nurses: A randomised controlled trial

Background: The cultural competence education programme for health professionals aimed to ensure that all people receive effective health care, particularly those from culturally diverse backgrounds. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a cultural competence educational course on nurses' self-assessment of their cultural competence. Design: A single-blind, randomised control trial design was employed. Participants and settings: Eligible nurses were recruited from a northern Taiwan medical centre with 2089 beds. Methods: A permuted block of four was used to randomly assign participants to the experimental (n = 47) and control groups (n = 50). The educational course comprised four units and was conducted once weekly for four weeks, with each session lasting 3 h. Results: A significant group-time interaction was identified regarding self-learning cultural ability, verifying the education intervention's effect on self-learning cultural ability after a two-month intervention. In addition, a significant main effect over time was discovered for total cultural competence; there was no significant interaction effect. Conclusions: The study provided evidence that an educational programme effectively improved cultural competence in clinical nurses. The results provide a reference for health care providers to design in-service cultural competence education for improving quality of care.