Multicultural Care in European Intensive Care Units – The project started!


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Project number: 2016-1-PL01-KA202-026615
Implementation period: 01.10.2016 – 30.09.2018

The role of nurses working in an intercultural environments, especially those that work in Intensive Care Units, seems to be very sensitive. As they often work with unconscious patients, whose family might not be in reach, they are expected to know how to care for a patient depending on culture and religion.

For example, Semites do not permit to touch their body by a third party. Jehovah’s Witness reject any available blood therapies or any derivatives of it. There might be also certain expectations concerning organ transplantation, dealing with the body post mortem. Lack of understanding leads to frustration, anxiety and aggression. Lack of cultural awareness may be a danger to patient’s dignity. Due to this, it is important to equip medical personnel with proper competencies.

As an answer to the above needs, the project aims at improving the knowledge, skills and competencies of the ICU nurses when caring for a culturally dissimilar patient. This aim will be achieved through:

  • in-depth analysis of intercultural training needs and intercultural competencies of ICU Nurses
  • development of specialist and accredited multicultural course for ICU Nurses
  • preparing recommendations for medical documentation to be used by ICU Nurses
  • wide dissemination of the outputs across whole Europe.

The project will directly involve 520 ICU Nurses. 400 of them will take part in the intercultural training needs and competencies analysis, and 120 will test the e-learning course designed especially for them. Other ICU Nurses and Experts from different medical areas will participate in working groups organised in each country in order to consult the developed material.

Partners

Polish Association of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Nurses – Rzeszów, Poland coordinator
Danmar Computers – Rzeszów, Poland
Visoka zdravstvena šola v Celju – Celje, Slovenia
OSTRAVSKA UNIVERZITA V OSTRAVE– Ostrava, Czech Republic
EfCCNa – Amsterdam, Netherlands
assist GmbH – Paderborn, Germany