Cultural Competency of Clinical Students in a Caribbean Medical School

Abstract

We aimed to find out the clinical students’ scores on cultural competencies and its different components (awareness and sensitivity, behavior, patient-centered communication, practice orientation, and self-assessment); to check the correlation between different components of cultural competency; and to examine the influence of students’ demographic characteristics on their cultural competency. A 48-item Schwarz’s Healthcare Provider Cultural Competence Instrument (HPCCI) comprising five scales was used to measure the cultural competency of Trinity Medical Sciences University students in clinical years. The descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and multivariable regression analysis were done using SPSS. The students obtained 81.8% in overall cultural competency, 83.3% in awareness and sensitivity towards cultural competency, 75.8% in behavior, 82.6% in patient-centered communication, 83.3% in practice orientation, and 92% in self-assessment of cultural competency. A significant positive correlation was found among different scales of HPCCI with some exceptions. Age, gender, race, school semester of study, and birth country of students and their fathers were found as independent predictors for different components of cultural competency measured. The medical students’ awareness/sensitivity toward cultural competence, concerning behavior, their patient-centered communication, and practice orientation skills need attention and have to be a driving point in the planning, developing, and implementing focused effective cross-culture curricula to better prepare the medical students for the benefit of diverse patients and communities they will serve.