Abstract
Background: Training healthcare practitioners on cultural competence and increasing the cultural diversity of healthcare professionals, may help to alleviate barriers and improve patient outcomes. The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) has implemented goals and guidelines for the training of culturally competent physical therapists. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether an association exists between physical therapy directors’ self-reports of the implementation of the APTA goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of those directors, and also to examine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in the implementation of these goals and guidelines and cultural competency among the directors. Methods: The study design was a cross sectional. The survey was sent to 225 physical therapy directors who were required to provide information about the implementation of the APTA goals and guidelines, cultural competency, and demographic characteristics. Linear regression was used to test the association between the implementation of APTA goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of the physical therapy directors. Independent sample t-tests were used to examine whether there were racial/ethnic differences in the implementation of these goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of the directors. Results: A total of 47 physical therapy directors responded to the survey. There was no significant relationship between the implementation of APTA goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of the physical therapy directors or significant racial/ethnic differences in the implementation of the goals and guidelines and cultural competence among the directors. Conclusions: Recommendations for practicing cultural competency in the field of physical therapy will need to be supported by further research into other populations. Other frameworks for understanding cultural competence among physical therapists should be explored.
Highlights
The U.S population has increasingly grown more racially and ethnically diverse [1,2,3]
While some research has previously been done on the need for diversity and cultural competence in healthcare [7,8,9,10,11,12, 30, 31], diversity and cultural competence in the field of physical therapy [34,35,36, 39], and to address specific cultural competence training and education [16,17,18, 21, 25, 40,41,42], to the best of our knowledge, this study was the first attempt to establish whether the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) goals and guidelines are being implemented at the director level and whether their implementation is associated with increased cultural competence among physical therapy directors training physical therapists
Findings from these analyses suggest that selfreported cultural competence scores were not significantly related to the implementation of the APTA goals and guidelines within this sample of participating physical therapy directors
Summary
The U.S population has increasingly grown more racially and ethnically diverse [1,2,3]. Patients have a variety of religious, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds, as well as values, beliefs, and behaviors [5] This diversity can be a problem for healthcare providers as the culture and values of patients differ from those of the healthcare providers. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether an association exists between physical therapy directors’ self-reports of the implementation of the APTA goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of those directors, and to examine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in the implementation of these goals and guidelines and cultural competency among the directors. Independent sample t-tests were used to examine whether there were racial/ethnic differences in the implementation of these goals and guidelines and the cultural competence of the directors. Other frameworks for understanding cultural competence among physical therapists should be explored
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