Table 1.

Cultural Competency Definitions

Competency	Definition
Cultural awareness	A self-examination process through which health care providers start to explore their own culture and professional values. The awareness process allows for personal recognition of biases, prejudices, and assumptions about those with different values, ways of life, and practices.
Cultural knowledge	Obtaining a thorough educational foundation on diverse cultures with a goal of understanding the client values about their lives and the client’s perspective of his or her worldviews.
Cultural skill	Learning how to collect clients’ health histories and culturally specific physical health assessments of diverse clients.
Cultural encounter	A process in which health care providers directly interact cross-culturally with diverse client groups to refine or modify beliefs about a cultural group.
Cultural desire	The process of motivating the health care provider to want to rather than have to engage in the process of becoming culturally aware, knowledgeable, and skilled in cultural encounters.