A nurse has recently begun to provide care to older adults in a large, urban hospital. Having lived until recently in an ethnically homogeneous region,

Question

the nurse has begun to recognize the significant differences in priorities and perspectives of clients from other cultural groups and has taken action to learn about these groups. What stage of cultural self-assessment is this nurse demonstrating?

A) Unconsciously incompetent
B) Consciously incompetent
C) Consciously competent
D) Unconsciously competent

Answer 1

Ans: B
Cultural competence begins with unconscious incompetence as a state of not being aware that one is lacking knowledge about another culture. When the person becomes aware of this knowledge gap, he or she progresses to a state of conscious incompetence and takes actions to learn about the cultural group; this stage is demonstrated by the nurse in this question. A person progresses to a stage of conscious competence by verifying generalizations and incorporating culture-specific interventions in care. The final stage is unconscious competence, when knowledge of the cultural group is fully integrated into one's thinking and approach.