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Ethnocultural empathy in healthcare
Improving Ethnocultural Empathy in Healthcare Students through Targeted Intervention
Joan Pearson, RN
Northeastern State University
Gregg Wadley College of Science and Health Professions
Department of Health Professions: Nursing
NURS 3102 Cultural Competency in Nursing
Spring, 2018
Improving Ethnocultural Empathy in Healthcare Students through Targeted Intervention Comment by DIANA MASHBURN: The title is not bold
An effective healthcare provider builds a relationship with their patient. The ability to understand and relate to others from ethnic and racial cultural groups different from one’s own has been termed ethnocultural empathy. Students in any healthcare profession studies, need to be culturally competent to provide the best care they can to their patients. Cultural empathy is an important part of healthcare as it helps a healthcare provider know how to effectively communicate with patients regardless of their cultural background. This study shows that poor communication between a provider and a patient is a relevant factor in suboptimal healthcare services to ethnic minorities. (Fleming, Thomas, Burnham, Charles & Shaw, 2015). Comment by DIANA MASHBURN: Two spaces between all sentences or they run together and become difficult to read. Comment by DIANA MASHBURN: There is only need for one period and it goes at the end of parenthetical citation.
Purpose of study Comment by DIANA MASHBURN: Level one headings are centered rather than at the left margin.
The study was conducted to determine if a student’s ethnocultural empathy measured using the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (SEE), improved after participating in a workshop designed to improve intercultural communication among healthcare students. The Rresearchers of this study did note in their article that this study was the first to examine whether an intervention specifically designed to improve students understanding of racial groups discordant from their own actually improved empathy and communication (Fleming et al., 2015).
Methodology
The researchers conducted this study using students in their first-year in either the college of Nursing or the College of Dental Medicine. One hundred thirty-six (N=136) students were invited to participate during a regularly scheduled class meeting in their training programs. Students were explicitly informed that their decision to participate was voluntary and would have no impact on their academic record. All students that were interested in participating with this study were eligible to do so with no exclusion criteria. A total of 86 students (63% of those invited) signed consent and 82 (95% of those who consented) were scheduled for the baseline assessment. Of the 82 participants, 40 were nursing students and 42 were dental students. In the sample of 82 participants, women were more represented in nursing at 85%, in the dental program only 45% of participants were women. In this study, most participants w...
