Cultural competence in healthcare and pre-hospital care : descriptive literature review

Abstract

This thesis is focusing on cultural competence accessibility in healthcare and pre-hospital care among healthcare providers and patients, based on the acceleration of multiculturalism in healthcare. Cultural competence is very crucial in healthcare and pre-hospital care and plays an enormous role in the outcome of services given. This thesis aims at disclosing the components of cultural competence skill among healthcare providers and the challenges as well as opportunities faced by healthcare workers in the daily working life including the impact of cultural competence among minority populations. Literature review method was used for this thesis. Some inclusion and exclusion criteria were set to screen data. The data used to analyse the results was extracted from previously researched evidence-based resources from trusted websites such as PubMed, Cochrane, and Google Scholar for literature searching. Thematic analysis is used in this thesis to review the results of descriptive literature review. Thirty-two articles were used to analyse the results. Components of cultural competence including cultural humility and sensitivity were recognised factors that can be included to improve patient-centered care and better-quality care for all patients. Challenges in healthcare systems like linguistic barriers leading to communication barriers, unbiased and unconscious bias leading to generalised stereotypes towards specific diverse populations and discrimination in the healthcare system. Opportunities were recognised in this research and has shown that positive relation between the healthcare professionals and the patients can reduce stress and workload if there is effective and mutual understanding between both parties and results in an improved quality care. Strategies including implementing training programs and recruiting minority populations to increase the diversity in the work environment and raising awareness amongst healthcare professionals can reduce health disparities among diverse populations. Based on the findings of this thesis, further research is recommended towards the impacts of cultural competence in pre-hospital care and the strategies that can be implemented to augment cultural competence amongst healthcare personnel. Further research towards clinical tools that can be used to evaluate cultural competence in healthcare facilities and the technology and digital improvements. JBI critical appraisal tools were used to further evaluate the articles used in the thesis work. In conclusion, the review show that patient quality of care is greatly influenced by cultural competence of healthcare providers.