Cultural Barriers Encountered by Immigrant Nurses in Nursing Environment: Literature Review

Abstract

The concept of globalization has made it more possible for people from all walks of life and of diverse cultural background to meet and come across one another. The Nursing profession is not left out of the effect of globalization, whereby mobility of nurses around the world has been described as a global phenomenon, hence the diversity in cultural orientation.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the cultural barriers immigrant nurses encounter in nursing environment. The aim is to provide evidence based knowledge regarding cultural barriers encountered by immigrant nurse in nursing environment of various host countries, which can help in promoting culturally integrated nursing environment.

Methods & Data: This thesis utilize literature review as an appropriate research method. Data were retrieved from reliable database; EBSCOhost (CINAHL), Sage Premier and Pro Quest Central from 2010 to 2021, using specified data inclusion & exclusion criteria. To this end, 6 relevant published works were selected as the primary data after which inductive content analysis was used in the interpretation of collected data and to deduce answers for the research question. Research question: what are the cultural barriers or challenges encountered by immigrant nurses in nursing environment?

Findings: Based on a combination of results from the 6 selected articles, the cultural barriers affecting immigrant nurses were grouped in the 4 main themes and 9 Sub themes. The themes are Communication with language and communications as sub themes; Prejudice with discrimination, racism and Colleagues’ attitude as sub themes; Cultural Differences with working culture and cultural displacement as sub themes and Career Obstacles with certificate variations and career ceilings as sub themes. The finding of this thesis revealed that there are cultural challenges for immigrant nurses due to cultural disparities encountered in nursing environment of the host countries.

Conclusion & Recommendation: As global migration of nurses across international borders continues, it can be claimed that immigrant nurses do encounter cultural related barriers in nursing environment. However there are few studies carried out on these barriers affecting immigrant nurses, hence the authors of this thesis recommends further studies to be carried out on cultural barriers in nursing environment focusing on immigrant nurses for better understanding and more so, problem specific policies that improves acculturation, which enable quick learning of the host countries cultural ways needs to be implemented.

Keywords: immigrant nurses, nursing environment, cultural barriers or challenges.