Enhancing cultural competency and responsiveness in public health nursing

Background: Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) of Hudson and Union Counties is a program of the Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey (the Partnership). NFP is a home visiting program serving first-time mothers during pregnancy and continuing until the child's second birthday. The communities served are culturally diverse which requires our program to provide culturally competent nursing support.

Methods: Cultural competence training was offered to NFP staff by the Partnership. A cultural responsiveness questionnaire was developed to help nurses capture client demographics, and cultural preferences and beliefs towards pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. The information collected is used by the nurses to prepare culturally appropriate plan of care for each client. The findings from the questionnaires are analyzed and used by the NFP team to determine needs for staff training and improve services for the community. 

Results: The questionnaire highlighted the cultural and ethnic diversity of the communities served. The process of the training and implementation of the questionnaire improved nurses competency in four areas: 1) assessment of cultural differences 2) awareness of client's beliefs and practices 3) development of culturally sensitive interventions 4) planning for anticipatory guidance in addition to the NFP curriculum. The questionnaire was expanded for use with clients who have infants and toddlers. The questionnaire was shared with other NFP sites in New Jersey for replication.

Conclusions: This process improved our cultural competency and responsiveness and it can be replicated for use in other public health care settings serving diverse populations.