Nurses’ Working Experiences of Their Provision of Cross-Cultural Services to Tibetan Patients With Kashin–Beck Disease: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Introduction: Limited qualitative studies exist on nurses’ experience in terms of communicating with and caring for patients with endemic diseases. The purpose of this study was to describe the working experiences of nurses caring for Tibetan patients with Kashin–Beck disease in China. Method: A qualitative design was used in this study. Sixteen nurses who worked in the orthopedics department of a large tertiary general hospital in Wuhan, China, constituting a purposive sample, were interviewed face-to-face using semi-structured guided questions. Results: Three major themes and nine subthemes were identified. Major themes included the challenge in cross-cultural nursing, stress adjustment in cross-cultural nursing, and reshaping competencies in cross-cultural nursing. Discussion: This study revealed that nurses encountered multifaceted challenges when caring for Tibetan patients with Kashin–Beck disease. In a multiethnic society, communication and language skills, cultural competency and cultural sensitivity, and diverse training methods to improve cross-cultural knowledge could increase ethnic minority patient satisfaction with cross-cultural care.