Assessing cultural awareness and competency in nursing education: A cross-sectional study of undergraduate nursing students in Ireland

Background There is a growing imperative for nurses to navigate multicultural healthcare systems and deliver quality, responsive, safe, person-centred care. Accordingly, undergraduate nursing education must be relevant and innovative to provide undergraduate nursing students with meaningful learning opportunities to develop cultural competence. This study aims to assess undergraduate nursing students’ cultural awareness and examine how these perceptions vary according to socio-demographic characteristics. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted utilising a valid and standardised tool, the cultural awareness scale (CAS). “One hundred and sixteen” undergraduate nursing students from a higher education institution participated in the study. The Mann–Whitney U test and the Kruskal–Wallis test were used to examine differences in CAS scores across subscales and total scores according to participants’ socio-demographic characteristics. Results Overall, the CAS results showed students’ level of cultural awareness was moderately high, with slight variations across the four CAS subscales. Participants born in Ireland had higher scores on all subscales compared to participants born outside Ireland, although these differences were not statistically significant. Participants who identified as White scored highest on General Education Experience (64.54 vs 42.66, U = 837, p = 0.002, r = −0.29 ), and Total Awareness (63.32 vs 45.86, U = 939.5, p = 0.012, r = −0.23 ) compared with participants who were categorised as people of colour. Conclusions The cultural awareness scores in this study were moderately high among undergraduate nursing students, consistent with previous research using the CAS instrument. The findings suggest an association between ethnic background and perceptions of culturally inclusive educational practices and highlight the need for further research to explore these patterns and inform the development of culturally responsive nursing education.