Concretization of Cross-Sectional Competences for Achieving Intercultural Competence among Health Sciences Students

Abstract

The training process of health sciences students is challenged to respond to a diverse society. Experiences, customs, beliefs, religion and culture influence the patient's decisions in the face of a health/disease process, which causes uncertainty among students. Internationally, training in intercultural competence in health is a requirement for accreditation, but this is not the case in South America. International guidelines have established the development of cross-sectional competences for acquiring skills that allow the individual to practice an activity in the global scenario, which could become the fundamental basis for acquiring intercultural competence in health. The objectives of this article are to identify how the guidelines to develop cross-sectional competences contribute to the achievement of intercultural competence in health in relation to four models of cultural competence in health, as well as to expose didactic strategies that allow to develop both competences during the training process of health sciences students. It is concluded that cross-sectional competences allow to acquire skills, values and competences that would facilitate the achievement of the characteristics indicated by the different models of cultural competence in health. Different active methodologies are appropriate to concretize the development of both competences; however, they should be accompanied by debriefing for the students to acquire critical thinking and reflexivity, while this process should not be carried out under ethnocentric patterns. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how that reflexivity is being developed in the training process of health sciences students.