Athletic Training Students’ Knowledge and Awareness of Diversity and Inclusion to Provide Culturally Competent Care

Context Cultural knowledge and skills are essential for all health care professionals. With evolving patient demographics, all providers must be equipped to adapt to a variety of cultures to provide patient-centered care. Objective Investigate athletic training students’ (ATSs’) current cultural awareness, sensitivity, and behavior levels and determine if their knowledge after a diversity educational intervention increases their ability to provide culturally competent care. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Private Division III institution. Patients or Other Participants First-, second-, and third-year students enrolled in an accredited master’s athletic training program. Main Outcome Measure(s) A paired samples t test determined a significant change between ATS Cultural Competence Assessment Inventory scores before and after the intervention. Results Athletic training students demonstrated higher levels of cultural competence after the intervention. Group 1, ATSs who completed the entire intervention, showed increased cultural awareness and sensitivity (CAS; P = .03) and cultural competence behavior (CCB; P = .02) scores after the intervention. Group 2, ATSs who partially completed the intervention, revealed no difference in CAS scores ( P = .50) but showed increased CCB ( P = .001) scores after the intervention. Lastly, Group 3, ATSs who did not complete the intervention, showed no statistical difference in CAS ( P = .21) and CCB ( P = .25) scores. Conclusions Evidence has shown that diversity training may be a successful tool to increase cultural competence. ATSs who fully or partially completed the intervention can demonstrate culturally congruent practice. Providing culturally competent care is a continual process, and therefore, access to diversity education within the curricula may help increase outcomes among ATSs.