A Comparison of Two Measures of Cultural Competence and Their Utility in Healthcare Education
Purpose
Cultural Competence (CC) is a well-established healthcare professional responsibility and is described as the ability to effectively deliver services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients. Doctor of Physical Therapy curriculum and global learning experiences aimed at developing CC in healthcare students must assess outcomes to validate their legitimacy. There is little guidance in the selection of measures of CC. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student scores on two common measures of CC, the Intercultural Development Inventory¨ (IDI) and the Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competence-among healthcare professionals-Student Version© (IAPCC-SV).
Methods/Description:
Participants were 145 Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students enrolled in a 3-year US academic graduate program. The students were from two different cohorts: first-year students (FYS; n = 78); and third-year students (TYS; n = 82). The IDI was a required part of the DPT curriculum at the study academic institution and was used for student self-assessment, developmental planning, and for assessment of student and program outcomes. Participation in the IAPCC-SV was voluntary and was not part of a course requirement. Students were provided an email invitation to complete an electronic version of the IAPCC-SV in class, which included the informed consent. The IDI and the IAPCC-SV were administered to FYS within 4 weeks of starting the program and to the TYS within 4 weeks of graduation. Data were analyzed with Spearman-rho correlations and Chi-square statistical tests.
Results/Outcomes:
The results of this study demonstrate that the IDI and IAPCC-SV measure different aspects of CC and have significant, but negligible to low correlations. The IDI measures a global, worldview prospective of (inter)cultural competence while IAPCC-SV measures CC specific to healthcare.
Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme:
One might argue that the most effective healthcare student would operate from an Acceptance/Adaptation orientation on the IDI and have high IAPCC-SV Cultural Knowledge, Skills, Awareness, Desire and Experience scores categorized as Culturally Proficient. Therefore, multimodal assessment that triangulates data and supports student learning outcomes may be the most effective strategy to capture the impact of a curricular content and global learning experience on studentsÕ development of cultural competence.