A comparative assessment of the cultural competency and confidence to serve diverse populations of chiropractic students in a public health course: A comparison of two cohorts

Introduction: To decrease health disparity in the care of diverse populations, allopathic and non-allopathic providers will require cultural competency to better serve these populations. We report on the impact in knowledge and confidence to serve diverse populations following a six-hour cultural competency training in two cohorts of third year chiropractic students. Method: IRB was approved by Life Chiropractic College West, Hayward, CA. We utilized paired t-tests (IBM SPSS software v19; Chicago, IL) to determine changes in scores using a 40-item (to assess knowledge) and 15-item questionnaires (to rate their confidence) for our stated purpose. Results: Cohort 1 comprised 46 students (average age = 28.7 years; 23 males: 23 females). Analysis revealed statistically significant increase in knowledge scores (t-test=9.406; p=0.000)) but not in their confidence (t-test=1.890; p=0.065) to serve diverse populations. Cohort 2 comprised 37 students (average age = 28.2 years; 24 males: 13 females). Unlike the first cohort, the knowledge (t-test=7.717; p=0.000) and confidence (t-test=2.728; p=0.010) scores increased from baseline measures. Gender trends in confidence were not observed. Discussion: The knowledge of chiropractic students increased significantly following a course in cultural competence. Their confidence to serve diverse populations however, did not change significantly. Further examination of our data revealed that baseline measures on confidence may be relatively high when compared to students of other professions. Conclusion: Chiropractic students increase their knowledge in cultural competency but not their confidence to treat diverse populations following an educational intervention. Further study is required to determine explanatory variables with our findings.