چكيده لاتين :
Background & Aims: Culture is a behavioral pattern that grows over time as a mental consequence through
social and religious structures and artistic manifestations. Culture encompasses the values, beliefs, and norms of
a particular group, which are learned and shared to guide thinking, decision-making, and actions in modeling
approaches. Historically, the Iranian community has a multi-ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious context,
which is also observed among the clients of the healthcare system. With the integration of the global economy,
the number of the clients from various cultural backgrounds and characteristics of health, cultural activities, health
needs, and expectations has also increased in all industrialized countries. In addition, the growth of international
exchanges and number of manpower transfers and migration, the need for nursing with cultural knowledge has
been created. A culturally qualified nurse has acquired a strong foundation in cultural attitudes, cultural
knowledge, and cultural skills. Nurses are often equipped with all the influential factors in cultural competence to
provide care to a wide variety of patients with diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore, such nurses are able to
assess the cultural needs of the clients, plan an appropriate care program, and provide skilled cultural care under
any circumstances. Care is the foundation of the nursing profession and considered an important component of
the quality health care that meets the health needs of patients. The care behaviors of nurses encompass all their
actions, cognitions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, movements, gestures, looks, and actions by which the client
is cared for, and these behaviors must be ethical. The differences in the care behaviors of nurses from one
institution to another or one country to another have led nursing researchers to investigate the influential factors
in the motivations and determinants of care behaviors. In addition, the process of nursing care provision is
influenced by the conditions of their work environment and community culture. Given the importance of care as
the most important component of nursing practices, the cultural differences in Iran, and the facts that patients from
different cities with different cultures refer to medical centers in large cities (including Tehran) due to the lack of
adequate medical facilities and nurses should have the necessary information about the cultural, social, and ethnic
status of patients as part of the nursing profession for the planning of nursing care, the present study aimed to
assess the correlation between the cultural competence of nurses and their care behaviors in the teaching medical
centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2019.
Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional, correlational study was performed with the participation of the
nurses working in the teaching medical centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran.
In total, 200 nurses were selected via multistage cluster sampling. At the first stage, the medical centers were
divided into two categories of general and specialized, and in the next stage, three centers were selected from
among the general medical centers, and three centers were selected from among the specialized centers randomly.
The sample size of treatment center was divided by the proportion of the nurses, and based on random allocation in each treatment center, the samples were selected from the nurses. Data were collected using a self-report
demographic form, the cultural competence questionnaire by Perng and Watson, and the caring behaviors
inventory (CBI-42) in a self-report manner during November 2019-January 2020. Data analysis was performed
in SPSS version 16. To achieve the specific goals and accurate responses to the research questions, we used
descriptive statistics (tables), central indicators (mean), dispersion indices (standard deviation), and inferential
statistics (independent t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation-coefficient). The significance level was set at
P<0.05, and it was assumed that due to the sufficient sample size, the study population had normal distribution.
Results: The mean score of the cultural competence of the nurses was 66.27 ± 15.02, and the mean score of the
care behaviors of the nurses was 5.28 ± 0.43. The highest mean score of cultural competence belonged to the
cultural sensitivity dimension (60.50), and the lowest mean score belonged to the cultural knowledge dimension
(56.25). The lowest mean score of the care behaviors belonged to the dimension of respecting others (5.09), and
the highest mean score was observed in the dimension of professional knowledge and skills (5.43). In general, a
weak, significant correlation was observed between the cultural competence of the nurses and their care behaviors.
In addition, significant correlations were observed between all the dimensions of the care behaviors and cultural
competence (P<0.05), except for the dimensions of cultural knowledge, skills, and sensitivity (P=0.058). The
findings also indicated that the emergency department nurses had higher cultural competence, and the married
nurses had better care behaviors.
Conclusion: Cultural competence is a major foundation of clinical nursing, and more attention to cultural
competence plays a pivotal role in better and more competent patient care. According to the results, the cultural
competence level of the nurses had a weak, significant correlation with their care behaviors. Therefore, it could
be concluded that enhancement in one of these factors leads to the improvement of the other. Considering that
each of these factors is an important component of nursing care, their improvement through academic and inservice training could enhance the provision of nursing care to the patients, while also facilitating the relationship
of nurses with patients.
