Nurse Practitioner Students’ Perceptions on Delivering Culturally Congruent Care to Vulnerable Mexican Immigrants: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Increasingly, nurse practitioners serve as vanguards in providing primary health care to vulnerable Mexican immigrants. The aims of this study were to explore the lived experiences of nurse practitioner students in caring for Mexican immigrant patients and to capture their meaning of cultural influences deemed essential to the delivery of culturally congruent care. An exploratory descriptive design was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select 17 nurse practitioner students who volunteered to complete a semistructured face-to-face audio-taped interview and follow-up focus group discussion. Constant comparison was utilized to analyze data. From this process, four distinct themes emerged: Culturally congruent care extends beyond race and ethnicity, understands the importance of therapeutic communication, accepts complementary and alternative medical modalities, and recognizes the importance of eating patterns, food choices, and perceptions of ideal weight and health. These findings build on our understanding of key evidence–based cultural beliefs and practices that are important in delivering culturally congruent care to this subgroup.