Cultural and linguistic diversity in nursing care

Global migration and shifting demographics within countries are creating cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) challenges within healthcare settings (Gerchow et al, 2021; O’Brien et al, 2021). Working and interacting with diverse individuals is a common experience for nurses, and embracing these differences can enrich the profession. It is important that nurses understand the significance of CALD challenges in practice and are equipped with strategies to address it. This article aims to explore these challenges and to promote strategies which enable nurses to provide culturally competent care.

No single national definition of CALD is identified (Marcus et al, 2022), which complicates efforts to assess the healthcare needs of individuals. From a community perspective, the CALD population are understood to underutilise healthcare services and are at risk of health inequalities (O’Brien et al, 2021). They may also experience adverse social determinants of health which require nurses to have a heightened awareness to prevent bias in care. The practice of understanding and delivering diversity in nursing has been termed ‘diversity management’ and is perceived as an integrated, innovative approach to enhance care quality, treatment concordance, patient satisfaction, and to improve health outcomes (Mengwei, 2024; Kaledio and Favour, 2024).