Abstract
Background: South Africa is a country with unique cultural diversity and requires healthcare that
compliments this uniqueness. Cultural competency is the ability of people and systems to collaborate or
respond in a way that respects and recognises the culture of the person or organization being served.
Cultural competency is a crucial element of practitioner-patient relationships since it does not only focus
on the patient but also on the practitioner's or healthcare student's cultural characteristics, which are
equally important. This benefits patients, health practitioners, and healthcare students. Limited
investigation exists on health practitioners’ and especially the chiropractic profession’s cultural
competency and its education in South Africa. The perception of chiropractic students of cultural and
linguistic competency at the University of Johannesburg is unexplored.
Aim: This study’s primary aim was to determine UJ chiropractic student perceptions and attitudes of
cultural competency. Secondarily, student perceptions and self-awareness of cultural competency was
determined according to certain demographic categories, including age, gender and year of study.
Method: This study was a quantitative, exploratory, and cross-sectional research design. This research
was anonymous and online, using a questionnaire on Google Forms. Participation in this study was
completely voluntary and participants were invited to complete the questionnaire after an introduction
and explanation on the topic of “cultural competency”, with the use of a 2 minutes digital presentation
during their class time. Participants completed the 33 questions survey, which took about 10 minutes.
Results: This study consisted of a sample of 241 chiropractic students. There were a total of 105
responses obtained, which resulted in a responses rate of 43.56%. Majority of the participants were
White (71.4%, n=75), the largest group of participants were Christian (63.8%, n=67), and more than
half of the participants were bilingual (68.6%, n=72). Majority of the participants agreed that
multilingualism is essential in South African healthcare, that healthcare professionals should speak at
least two official languages, and that they are respectful of the patient’s language.
A significantly high amount of participants agreed that they always show respect for their patient’s
cultures during interaction with them, and that they recognise that medical treatment and health
education value differs between cultures. Less than half of the respondents agreed that they use or will
use cultural advisors during consultations and the minority are aware of the prevalence of specific
health disparities within cultural communities, and of the environmental and socio-economic risk factors
that contribute to health disparities of diverse cultural groups.
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Despite a generally high level of agreement on the cultural competence questions, a significantly high
amount of students felt the need for professional training and development to advance their knowledge
and abilities, which they believed would help them provide adequate services to culturally and
linguistically diverse groups.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that although students' opinions of language use and cultural
competence generally showed high levels of agreement, they also suggested a desire for additional
training in cultural competence and the delivery of services to groups with different cultures and
languages. The importance of respecting a patient in a clinical environment is widely recognized. The
findings of this study can be used to develop new lecture material, courses, and workshops that
address cultural competency and healthcare inequities while assisting chiropractic departments in their
curriculum evaluation.
Keywords: Cultural competency, language barriers, chiropractic, perceptions, education, patient practitioner
relationship.