Teaching cultural competence to undergraduate pharmacy students using vignettes (case scenarios) as an innovative teaching intervention.

Abstract

Cultural competence is instrumental in reducing health equities. Addressing cultural competence at higher education level in healthcare students lays a solid cultural competence foundation for professional practice. The use of vignettes as a teaching intervention was effective because it allowed the use of role-modelling in real-life situations.The study aimed to enhance cultural competence in undergraduate pharmacy students using a self-directed online interactive cultural competence module embedded with three vignettes (case scenarios). This study was an exploratory longitudinal mixed method (survey and written feedback) study and used a convenience sample of 90 pharmacy students at an Australian University. Students' self-perceived transcultural self-efficacy was evaluated pre- and post-intervention using Jeffreys' Transcultural Self-Efficacy Tool (TSET) which is a validated outcome measure. Vignettes were effective in teaching cultural competence as shown by significant (P < 0.0005) changes pre- to post-intervention in cognitive, practical and affective domains scores using TSET. The affective domain had the least positive mean score change. There was no significant association between any of the demographic factors such as age, gender or birthplace/parents' birthplace and changes in any of the three domains. Cronbach's alpha of >0.90 in all domains confirmed the test's internal consistency and reliability. The findings were indicative of the students' positive receptivity to learning cultural competence and that they had a well-developed understanding of cultural competence. Further research is needed to determine why most cultural competence teaching methods produce little or no meaningful change in enhancing the affective domain.