The Current Status and Issues of Cultural Competence among Japanese Clinical Nurses Compared with the Situation in the U.S. : A Narrative Literature Review

The number of foreign residents in Japan has been steadily increasing in the last three decades. Consequently, the demands for healthcare will increase, making cultural competence (CC) essential for healthcare providers. This study aims to reveal the current status and issues of CC among Japanese nurses compared to situations in the U.S. This narrative literature review drew on electronic databases of PubMed, CINAHL, Ichushi‒Web, CiNii, J‒Stage in Japanese and English published primarily from 2000 to 2023. In Japan, both nurses and healthcare facilities have recognized the difficulties with CC since the 2000s. For this reason, educational strategies and guidelines have been developed since the 2010s, resulting in an improvement in CC. In the U.S., CC‒models and standards were developed following Leininger’s theory in 1950, and strategies for CC in healthcare have begun to evolve since the 2000s. U.S. nurses have enhanced CC through educational toolkits and various continuous training programs as part of their lifelong learning. For this reason, Japan still lags behind the U.S. owing to unstandardized curricula and insufficient training opportunities in the workplace. Consequently, Japanese clinical nurses require continuous education and training, similar to the on‒the‒job training programs in the U.S. that incorporate organizational approaches. Nurses in Japan are close to patients in healthcare settings thus, enhancing their CC enables them to provide culturally optimal care for diverse patients in this rapidly globalizing healthcare setting.