Using Simulation to Educate Rural NP students About Cultural Congruence

Enhancing Cross-Cultural Competence of Medical and Healthcare Students with the Use of Simulated Patients—A Systematic Review

“…In total, 27 studies that matched the inclusion criteria were identified. The studies were conducted in five countries: twenty-two in the United States [4][5][6][7]11,12,33,35,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], two in Australia [9,51], two in Turkey [52,53], one in Canada [54] and Norway [33]. Among them, one study was a bi-national intervention carried out at both American and Norwegian universities [33].…”

“…Six studies were conducted on medical students [5,[37][38][39][40]54]. Twelve articles focused on nursing students [6,7,11,12,33,[41][42][43]49,50,52,53]. Three papers presented data on dentistry students [4,35,46], one on pharmacy students [47], and one on physiotherapy students [48].…”

“…Their sample sizes varied between 25 and 104 students. The majority of them used the pre-post study design to evaluate the effects of the presented interventions [6,11,12,33,[41][42][43]49,50,53], with four of them using additional post-intervention measures to capture students' satisfaction and perceived effectiveness of the intervention, among others [7,11,12,42]. Additionally, some articles utilized mixed methodology to collect both qualitative and quantitative data.…”

“…Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers are expected to take into consideration their patients' values, beliefs, behavioral patterns, and linguistic needs to deliver culturally competent care [2]. It seems necessary to educate future healthcare professionals about factors affecting the health of under-represented patient populations, including their understanding of treatment strategies, ability to recognize symptoms, healthcare needs, social isolation, accessibility of health services, economic stability and employment chances, immigration and insurance status, education, various customs and cultural patterns, religious influences, family support, decision-making patterns, fear of discrimination, communication styles, language barriers and non-verbal attributes of communication to ensure the safety of treatment by enhancing access to the services and treatment compliance [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The necessity to prepare doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers to provide safe and culturally competent care was noticed by policy-makers around the world.…”

Addressing Health Inequities through Simulation Training and Education in Rural and Tribal Communities

“…Preparing nursing students for rural and culturally diverse settings calls for innovative approaches using simulation-based education. Simulation-based education is an effective method for teaching and learning for nursing students in a safe, controlled environment, where students are provided a simulated experience of an actual clinical situation to increase students' hands-on practice and knowledge not only of clinical skills but also cultural care and communication without the risk of harming a real patient [10,11]. Further, clinical opportunities in rural and culturally diverse settings such as American Indian communities can support and enhance learning opportunities for nursing students [12] and perhaps even for faculty.…”