Cultural competence and care

Jonas Debesay - Ph.D. Fellow

Advisor:

Associate Professor Åshild Slettebø

Project period:

2006-2010

Every 5th Oslo inhabitant is of immigrant background. This fact has caused some challenges for nurses in the health services regarding differences in language and culture. The first theoretical contributions on nursing and culture that have been developed in Norway originated mainly from American nurses in the 1950s. A major part of this literature applied a narrow, static approach to the notion of culture. Thus, research on this area focused on mapping differences in traditions and symbols concerning various immigrant groups.  However, this approach has been criticized for being a contributing factor in perpetuating stereotype images of the “others”. Nursing is a relational discipline where there are attached expectations on the performance towards different groups of patients. The purpose of this project is therefore to gain insight in the values and attitudes nurses emphasize when caring for ethnic minority groups.

Semi-structured interviews with nurses in home healthcare services will be carried out to investigate the nurses’ values and attitudes.

This project will aim at providing a better understanding of how nurses interact with patients from a different cultural background. Drawing upon this research, a model for cultural competence that includes a caring perspective will be developed.