Model for Cultural Competence

Model for Cultural Competence

Cultural Competence Models Models are tools that assist with understanding the causes of behaviors, predicting behaviors, and evaluating interventions. Cultural competence models help the learner understand the different components of cultural competence, guide their interactions with people of different cultural groups, and help them identify areas in which they may need to increase their education.

The Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Health Care Services Josepha Campinha-Bacote (2009) developed a model of cultural competence that is based on five constructs:

1. Cultural awareness. The process of conducting a self-examination of one’s own biases toward other cultures and the in-depth exploration of one’s cultural and professional background.

2. Cultural knowledge. The process in which the health care professional seeks and obtains a sound information base regarding the worldviews of different cultural and ethnic groups as well as biological variations, diseases and health conditions, and variations in drug metabolism found among ethnic groups (biocultural ecology).

3. Cultural skill. The ability to conduct a cultural assessment to collect relevant cultural data regarding the client’s presenting problem as well as accurately conducting a culturally based physical assessment.

4. Cultural encounter. The process that encourages the health care professional to directly engage in face-to-face cultural interactions and other types of encounters with clients from culturally diverse backgrounds to modify existing beliefs about a cultural group and to prevent possible stereotyping.

5. Cultural desire. The motivation of the health care professional to “ want to” rather than to “ have to” engage in the process of becoming culturally aware, culturally knowledgeable, culturally skillful, and to seek cultural encounters.

The Purnell Model for Cultural Competence The Purnell model for cultural competence started as an organizing framework in 1991 when Dr. Larry Purnell discovered the need for both students and staff to have a framework for learning about their cultures and the cultures of their patients and families. The purposes of the model are to provide a framework for health care providers to learn concepts and characteristics of culture and to define circumstances that affect a person’s cultural worldview in the context of historic perspectives (Purnell, 2005).
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Scroll to Top