School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, 2560, Australia.
Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, 2560, Australia.
BMC Psychol. 2022 May 7;10(1):119. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-00818-4.
Racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity in Australia is rapidly increasing. Although Indigenous Australians account for only approximately 3.5% of the country's population, over 50% of Australians were born overseas or have at least one migrant parent. Migration accounts for over 60% of Australia's population growth, with migration from Asia, Sub-Saharan African and the Americas increasing by 500% in the last decade. Little is known about Australian mental health care practitioners' attitudes toward this diversity and their level of cultural competence.
Given the relationship between practitioner cultural competence and the mental health outcomes of non-White clients, this study aimed to identify factors that influence non-White and White practitioners' cultural competence.
An online questionnaire was completed by 139 Australian mental health practitioners. The measures included: the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR); the Multicultural Counselling Inventory (MCI); and the Color-blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS). Descriptive statistics were used to summarise participants' demographic characteristics. One-way ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis tests were conducted to identify between-group differences (non-White compared to White practitioners) in cultural competence and racial and ethnic blindness. Correlation analyses were conducted to determine the association between participants' gender or age and cultural competence. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to predict cultural competence.
The study demonstrates that non-White mental health practitioners are more culturally aware and have better multicultural counselling relationships with non-White people than their White counterparts. Higher MCI total scores (measuring cultural competence) were associated with older age, greater attendance of cultural competence-related trainings and increased awareness of general and pervasive racial and/or ethnic discrimination. Practitioners with higher MCI total scores were also likely to think more highly of themselves (e.g., have higher self-deceptive positive enhancement scores on the BIDR) than those with lower MCI total scores.
The findings highlight that the current one-size-fits-all and skills-development approach to cultural competence training ignores the significant role that practitioner diversity and differences play. The recommendations from this study can inform clinical educators and supervisors about the importance of continuing professional development relevant to practitioners' age, racial/ethnic background and practitioner engagement with prior cultural competence training.
澳大利亚的种族、民族、宗教和文化多样性正在迅速增加。尽管澳大利亚原住民仅占该国人口的约 3.5%，但超过 50%的澳大利亚人在海外出生或至少有一位移民父母。移民占澳大利亚人口增长的 60%以上，过去十年中，来自亚洲、撒哈拉以南非洲和美洲的移民增加了 500%。关于澳大利亚心理健康护理人员对这种多样性的态度及其文化能力水平，知之甚少。
鉴于从业者文化能力与非白种客户心理健康结果之间的关系，本研究旨在确定影响非白种和白种从业者文化能力的因素。
139 名澳大利亚心理健康从业者在线完成了问卷。测量包括：平衡意愿反应量表（BIDR）；多元文化咨询量表（MCI）；和色盲种族态度量表（CoBRAS）。描述性统计用于总结参与者的人口统计学特征。单因素方差分析和克鲁斯卡尔-沃利斯检验用于确定文化能力和种族盲之间的组间差异（非白种从业者与白种从业者相比）。相关分析用于确定参与者的性别或年龄与文化能力之间的关联。分层多元回归分析用于预测文化能力。
研究表明，非白种心理健康从业者比他们的白人同行更具有文化意识，并且与非白人建立更好的多元文化咨询关系。较高的 MCI 总分（衡量文化能力）与年龄较大、参加更多文化能力相关培训以及提高对一般和普遍的种族和/或族裔歧视的认识有关。MCI 总分较高的从业者也比 MCI 总分较低的从业者更有可能对自己评价更高（例如，在 BIDR 上的自我欺骗性积极增强得分较高）。
研究结果强调，目前一刀切和技能发展方法的文化能力培训忽略了从业者多样性和差异所起的重要作用。本研究的建议可以使临床教育者和主管了解与从业者的年龄、种族/族裔背景和从业者对先前文化能力培训的参与相关的持续专业发展的重要性。
