The impact of cultural diversity forum on students' openness to diversity.

Abstract: As the population demographics for the United States (U.S.) shift towards increasing diversity, it is essential that nurses provide culturally competent care. Cultural sensitivity has been identified as a major curricular element in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN) The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Thus it is imperative that nursing faculty use effective strategies to help nursing students develop cultural sensitivity and competence. Educational workshops focusing on cultural diversity are usually designed to increase people's cultural sensitivity. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a cultural diversity forum on nursing students' cultural sensitivity as measured by their openness to diversity. A convenience sample of students was recruited from a public university in the southeastern United States. The workshop was designed as a forum that combined a keynote presentation, shared meal, and a small group interactional activity. Cultural sensitivity was measured using the Openness to Diversity/Challenge Scale (ODCS), and was administered to students before and after the forum. A convenience sample of 47 students agreed to participate and completed both the pretest and posttest. Following the workshop, me students had more cultural sensitivity as measured by their scores on the ODCS (Wilcoxin Signed-Rank test z= -3.286, p = 0.001). The findings suggested that an educational format like the cultural diversity forum can promote students' cultural sensitivity. Further research needs to continue to focus on the effectiveness of strategies to increase the cultural sensitivity of baccalaureate nursing students. Key Words: Cultural Diversity, Students' Openness to Diversity, Impact of Openness INTRODUCTION Since the 1900s, the population demographics of the U.S. have undergone a tremendous transformation. According to the U.S. Department of State, U.S. minorities will be the majority by 2042, increasing from 34 percent in 2008 to 54 percent in 2042. Within four states - Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas - and the District of Columbia, minorities currently outnumber non-Hispanic Whites (U.S. Census Bureau). The "American" face continues to evolve to more closely mirror the global face where 75 out of 100 persons represent a non-white ethnicity (U.S. Census Bureau). While population demographics for the U.S. are shifting significantly towards increasing diversity, members of the nursing profession, however, does not reflect this diversity. Most nurses continue to be of Caucasian descent, while patients are increasingly representative of other racial groups (Sullivan Commission Report on Diversity, 2007). For several decades, the nursing profession has recognized the challenges these differences in demographics create in providing high quality nursing care to patient populations. In fact, cultural sensitivity was identified as a major curricular element in The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice (AACN, 2008). Therefore, nurse educators have shouldered the responsibility to raise the cultural sensitivity and awareness of both faculty and students to ensure that as nurses enter the workforce they do so as culturally competent practitioners. To this end, schools of nursing craft initiatives that create both structural and process mechanisms that attract and retain higher numbers of minority faculty and students and result in opportunities for faculty and students from diverse backgrounds to engage in active thinking and dialogue. This article describes the impact of one school of nursing's initiative on students' openness to diversity experiences. The School has a long-standing commitment to promoting cultural sensitivity and cultural competency in its faculty and students and offers both baccalaureate and master degrees in nursing. The School is part of a larger public University which has been described by U. …