Cultural Competence Interventions for Health Care Providers Working With Racialized Foreign-born Older Adults: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Abstract

Background Integrating culturally competent approaches in the provision of health care services is recognized as a promising strategy for improving health outcomes for racially and ethnically diverse populations. Person-centered care, which ensures patient values guide care delivery, necessitates cultural competence of health care providers to reduce racial/ethnic health disparities. Previous work has focused on interventions to improve cultural competence among health care workers generally; however, little investigation has been undertaken regarding current practices focused on racialized foreign-born older adults. Objective We seek to synthesize evidence from existing literature in the field to gain a comprehensive understanding of interventions to improve the cultural competence of health professionals who care for racialized foreign-born older adults. The aim of this paper is to outline a protocol for a systematic review of available published evidence. Methods Our protocol will follow the PRISMA-P (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses–Protocols) for systematic review protocols. We will conduct a systematic search for relevant studies from four electronic databases that focus on health and social sciences (PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Cochrane Database). After selecting relevant papers using the inclusion and exclusion criteria, data will be extracted, analyzed, and synthesized to yield recommendations for practice and for future research. Results The systematic review is currently at the search phase where authors are refining the search strings for the selected databases; the search strings will be finalized by July 2022. We anticipate the systematic review to be completed by December 2022. Conclusions This study will inform the future development and implementation of interventions to support culturally competent, person-centered care of racialized foreign-born older adults. Trial Registration PROSPERO CRD42021259979; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=259979 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/31691