State of Cross-Cultural Competencies Development among Students from the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile

Abstract

This article analyzes the situation of cross-cultural competencies in students of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile. For the above, a complementary mixed methodology was applied. During the qualitative stage, 3 focus groups, 10 participants each one, were carried out, in addition to 8 semi-structured interviews. In the quantitative stage, the scale of cross-cultural competencies in health was applied to 130 students from the Faculty. Results show      that students have a medium to high competence for the dimensions of cross-cultural cognitive skills, cross-cultural affective skills and behavioral skills to establish cross-cultural communication and low competence to link professional training to cultural diversity. The foregoing shows that there are consolidated basal competencies for the complete development of cross-cultural competence through future systematic training processes in the context of their academic studies