A statewide data collection effort was implemented to assess the validity and reliability of a 52-item consumer assessment instrument of the cultural competency mental health providers. Following a 2-year, community-driven instrument development process, a consumer assessment tool was administered to 238 African American, Latino, and Vietnamese American mental health consumers across the state of Maryland. A subsequent principal components analysis indicated that 44 of the 52 items loaded on one of four factors, which accounted for 52% of the variance in the principal components analysis. It was also found that the overall instrument had a Cronbach’s alpha of .92. The authors conclude that although these findings suggest this scale has good psychometric properties and can be used as a clinical tool in the assessment of the cultural competency of mental health providers, more work is needed to finetune the scale.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aday L. A. (1996). Designing and conducting health surveys (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
2.
Brach, C., & Fraser, I. (2000). Can cultural competency reduce racial and ethnic health disparities? A review and conceptual model. Medical Care Research & Review, 57, 181-217.
3.
Cattell, R. B. (1966). The meaning and strategic use of factor analysis. In R. B. Cattell (Ed.), Handbook of multivariate experimental psychology (pp. 173-243). Chicago: Rand McNally.
4.
Clark, C. H., Mahoney, J. S., Clark, D. J., & Eriksen, L. R. (2002). Screening for depression in a hepatitis C population: The reliability and validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Journal of Advanced Nursing, 40, 361-369.
5.
Davidhizar, R., Bechtel, G., & Giger, J. N. (1998). A model to enhance culturally competent care. Hospital Topics, 76, 22-26.
6.
Donini-Lenhoff, F. G., & Hedrick, H. L. (2000). Increasing awareness and implementation of cultural competence principles in health professions education. Journal of Allied Health, 29, 241-245.
7.
Finley, L. Y. (1998). The cultural context: Families coping with severe mental illness. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 21, 230-239.
8.
Flores, G. (2000). Culture and the patient-physician relationship: Achieving cultural competency in health care. Journal of Pediatrics, 136, 14-23.
9.
George, M. (2001). The challenge of culturally competent health care: applications for asthma. Heart Lung, 30, 392-400.
10.
Goldfield, N. (1996). Collecting and using information from patients: A summary guide of recent practical research. Managed Care Quarterly, 4, 39-48.
11.
Grinnell, R. M., Jr. (1985). Social work research and evaluation (2nd ed.). Itsaca, IL: F.E. Peacock.
12.
Hewlett, S., Smith, A. P., & Kirwin, J. R. (2002). Measuring the meaning of disability in rheumatoid arthritis: The personal impact health assessment questionnaire (PI HAQ). Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, 61, 986-993.
13.
Hick, S. (1997). Participatory research: An approach for structural social workers. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 8, 63-78.
14.
Leonard, B. J. (2001). Quality nursing care celebrates diversity. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 6, 3. Available from http://www.nursingworld.org/ojin/
15.
Leonard, B. J., & Plotnikoff, G. A. (2000). Awareness: the heart of cultural competence. AACN Clinical Issues, 11, 51-59.
16.
Maryland Mental Hygiene Administration. (2002). Survey of the cultural competency of its adult services. Baltimore, MD: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Mental Hygiene Administration.
17.
Massett, H. A. (1996). Appropriateness of Hispanic print material. A content analysis. Health Education Research, 1, 231-242.
18.
McDowell, I., & Newell, C. (1996). Measuring health: A guide to rating scales and questionnaires (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
19.
Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
20.
Pike, C. K. (2002). Measuring racial climate in schools of social work: Instrument development and validation. Research on Social Work Practice, 12, 29-46.
21.
Rorie, J. A., Paine, L. L., & Barger, M. K. (1996). Primary care for women. Cultural competence in primary care services. Journal of Nurse-Midwifery, 41, 92-100.
22.
Rose, V. L. (1998). Cultural competence in health care. American Family Physician, 57, 28-82.
23.
Salimbene, S. (1999). Cultural competence: A priority for performance improvement action. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 13, 23-35.
24.
Sapnas, K. G., & Zeller, R. A. (2002). Minimizing sample size when using exploratory factor analysis for measurement. Journal of Nursing Measurement, 10, 135-154.
25.
Shaw-Taylor, Y., & Benesch, B. (1998). Workforce diversity and cultural competency in health care. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 5, 138-148.
26.
Siegel, C., Davis-Chambers, E., Haugland, G., Bank, R., Aponte, C., & McCombs, H. (2000). Performance measures of cultural competency in mental health organizations. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 28, 91-106.
27.
Smedley, B. D., Stith, A. Y., & Nelson, A. R. (Ed.). (2002). Unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
28.
Soltys, S. M., Wowra, S. A., & Hodo, G. L. (1999). Child psychiatrists as leaders in public mental health systems: Two surveys of state mental health departments. Psychiatric Services, 50, 1591-1595.
29.
Stephens, J. P. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
30.
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. (2002). Assuring cultural competence in health care: Recommendations for national standards and an outcomes-focused research agenda. Retrieved July 19, 2002, from: http://www.omhrc.gov/clas/
31.
Weinbach. R. W., & Grinnell, R. M., Jr. (1996). Statistics for social workers (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
32.
Zambrana, R. E. (1991). Cross cultural methodological strategies in the study of low income racial ethnic groups. In M. L. Grady (Ed.), Primary care research: Theory and methods (pp. 221-227). Rockville, MD: U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
33.
Zweifler, J., & Gonzalez, A. M. (1998). Teaching residents to care for culturally diverse populations. Academic Medicine, 73, 1056-1061.
