Attitudes of the students of nursing toward people of different cultures

Background. Cultural difference may be a source of resentment, fear and insecurity or curiosity, admiration and fascination. Perceiving others as interesting, stimulating and valuable promotes interactions based on mutual recognition and respect; such perception channels cooperation and collaboration. On the other hand, perceiving others as insignificant, backward and with low self-esteem triggers aggressive behaviour, antagonism and domination.

Aim of the study. The aim of the study was to learn about the attitudes of the students of nursing toward people of different cultures.

Material and methods. The research was conducted in a group of 100 students of nursing and used the Bogardus social distance scale and the author’s questionnaire of the survey. Statistical analysis used Statistica 9.0, the Mann-Whitney U test and the Pearson’s test of correlation (c2).

Results. Under examination with the Bogardus scale only 23% examined students showed accepting attitude in the Romani people, 31% in muslims and 45% in the Jewish. The highest percentage of bias was revealed in the 7th item on the Bogardus bliscale: the students condemned the possibility of kinship by marriage in the family with a representative of this minority. The students are not too self-critical in the assessment of their distance toward people of different cultures/minorities; because in the survey conducted with the use of a questionnaire designed by the authors only 27% of the respondents declared they had prejudice against ethnic minorities, 11% in the face national and religious. The bias declared by the respondents related to such minority groups as: the Romani people, the Jewish, Germans, Ukrainians, muslims, Russians and Romanians.

Conclusions. Relations with others are an important element of interpersonal and social development. Negative attitudes toward cultural differences, closing ourselves up in the circle of our own cultural values and assuming that only our view of the world is the right one deprives us of a chance to develop.