Preparing Nursing Students for Enhanced Communication With Minority Populations Via Simulation

Abstract

BackgroundHealth disparities among minority women are in the spotlight. Locally, in the Southwestern United States, almost 30% of the population speaks Spanish at home rather than English. Since clear communication is essential to safe, quality nursing care, this is a call to action on behalf of our patient population and our nurses in training. MethodOur university recently debuted an interdisciplinary simulation between the college of nursing and the language department. We inserted language students into the simulation in pairs: one as a Spanish-speaking family member of the patient and the other as an on-call language interpreter. We instructed the nursing students to call the “Language Line” as needed during the simulation. ResultsBoth language and nursing students gave positive feedback about the realism and utility of the enhanced scenarios. After the simulation, we identified several areas for improvement that could enhance the communication between the nursing and language students. ConclusionThe safety and quality of nursing care is sure to improve when teamwork, collaboration, and patient-centered care improve communication for all patient populations.