Cross-Cultural Information for Japanese Nurses at an International Hospital: A Controlled Before–After Intervention Study

Abstract

This study sought to evaluate the efficacy of providing health information through an ordinary travel guidebook combined with a short digital video compared with an ordinary travel guidebook alone by measuring the anxiety levels of Japanese nurses dealing with foreign patients. We conducted a controlled before–after intervention study in 2016 at a major international hospital in Japan. We created two interventions: (1) a brief piece of health information from a travel guidebook for Japan, (2) the same travel guidebook, and a four-minute digital video in English on health information in Japan, titled Mari Info Japan for nurses. After each intervention, we assessed the nurses’ levels of anxiety about caring for foreign patients. We evaluated the results through statistical testing and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y. Of 111 nurses, 83 (74.8%) completed both interventions and the questionnaires. The second intervention (the guidebook and video) proved more effective than the first (the guidebook) for reducing anxiety related to caring for foreign patients. Japanese nurses can lower their anxiety about dealing with foreign patients by learning about the content of various forms of health care information currently accessible to overseas visitors. Using both guidebooks and digital videos can help to reduce nurses’ anxiety.

The Development and Psychometric Testing of the Scale of Cultural Sensitivity of Health Care Professionals in Japan

“…Therefore, Japanese people have less direct experience of respecting cultural differences and less opportunity to consciously attempt to understand people from other cultures. Japan is considered a mono-ethnic and monolingual country; its foreign population was as low as 2.2% in 2021 ( Nishikawa et al, 2022 ). Correspondingly, Japanese nurses have limited experience caring for foreign patients ( Asakawa et al, 2023 ; Kondo et al, 2021 ).…”