Cultural Competency

Cultural Competency Finding Information Using Alumni Medical Library Resources

Subject Guide Pages Healthcare Disparities Subject Page Minority HealthSubject Page

Subject Guide Pages Each Subject Guide page contains links to: • Library catalog searches • E-texts • Databases • E-journals • Recommended websites All of these can be good starting places for an information search.

Print Materials: Library Catalog Search the library catalog for books on a topic. There are three main ways it may be helpful to search the catalog: by Keyword, by Subject, and using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)

Searching the Catalog: Keywords A keyword search looks for the terms you enter in the title or description of the item. Here, you can use “cultural* competen*” (the * serves as a wild card to retrieve “cultural competence,” “culturally competent,” etc.)

Searching the Catalog: Subject Choose Advanced Search option

Searching the Catalog: Subject Select Subject from menu Subject terms to try: • Cultural Pluralism • Multiculturalism

Searching the Catalog: MeSH MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the vocabulary used to index articles in PubMed. You can also search the library catalog using these terms. The next slides show MeSH terms that may be useful in locating print information on Cultural Competency.

MeSH Terms: People Population Groups • African Continental Ancestry Group • American Native Continental Ancestry Group • Asian Continental Ancestry Group • European Continental Ancestry Group • Oceanic Ancestry Group Ethnic Groups • African Americans • Arabs • Asians • Gypsies • Hispanic Americans • Inuits • Jews

MeSH Terms: Specific Issues • Cultural Diversity • Culture • Disabled Persons • Homosexuality • Religion and Medicine

Searching for Journal Articles Often you will not find a print book on your topic, and will wish to search one or more of the library's databases to locate useful journal articles. The premier database for biomedical journal literature is the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE, accessible through PubMed. PubMed uses the MeSH vocabulary.

MEDLINE: Overview Millions of citations to articles in biomedical journals Sign in through the Medical Library homepage to get full-text access to articles in journals to which the library subscribes.

MeSH Notes Many more MeSH terms are useful for article searches in PubMed than are likely to be used for print items in the library catalog. Cultural Competency is a broad and varied topic with many potentially relevant terms, so you may need to try different combinations of headings depending on exactly what you're looking for. It is almost always a good idea to use a controlled vocabulary (like MeSH) if one is available, since a human is responsible for assigning these terms.

MeSH in PubMed To take advantage of the MeSH terms once you are on the PubMed site, click on MeSH Database under More Resources.

Locating MeSH Terms Enter search terms one at a time and click Go. The system will suggest MeSH terms related to your concept. The next slide shows MeSH terms that may be helpful for locating materials on Medical Professionalism. Choose those that seem most promising for your topic.

MeSH for Cultural Competency Relevant terms new in 2008 (so only for recent articles): • Cultural Competency • Healthcare Disparities • Health Status Disparities • Minority Health Many population and ethnic groups are MeSH terms (next slide). It may be helpful to combine these with: • Cross-Cultural Comparison • Cultural Diversity • Culture • Population Characteristics

MeSH Terms: Groups of People Population Groups • African Continental Ancestry Group -African Americans • American Native Continental Ancestry Group -Indians, Central American -Indians, North American -Indians, South American -Inuits • Asian Continental Ancestry Group -Asian Americans • European Continental Ancestry Group • Oceanic Ancestry Group Ethnic Groups • African Americans • Arabs • Asian Americans • Gypsies • Hispanic Americans -Mexican Americans • Inuits • Jews

MeSH Terms: Specific Issues • Communication Barriers • Disabled Persons -Hearing Disabled Persons -Mentally Disabled Persons -Mentally Ill Persons -Visually Disabled Persons • Educational Status • Homosexuality • Language • Religion -"Religion and Medicine"

Searching with MeSH Terms If more than one term is suggested, check the box beside the one that looks most useful. You can also click on a term for more information and to select subheadings.

Subheadings MeSH terms may be associated with one or more subheadings, which narrow the search to specific aspects of a topic: for example, only educational aspects of Cultural Competency. If you do not specifically want to limit the search to a particular aspect, leave these boxes unchecked to include all subheadings.

Searching PubMed with MeSH Once you have checked off a search term, you will tell PubMed to search for it. Click Send To and select Search Box with AND.

Searching, Continued This creates a search box in which you will build your PubMed search. You can either click to Search PubMed immediately, or add more terms to your search in the same way you added the first one, using AND or OR to combine.

Results When you have the search terms you want, click Search PubMed to see results. Review articles and articles available in free full text will be sorted out for you. Note that ‘Free Full Text’ in this context means free to anyone: you may have full text access to more than these articles through BU’s subscriptions.

Refining Results If you get too many results to easily review, you can click on the Advanced Search link to apply limits. Scroll down to Limits. Limits let you narrow search results by article type, publication year, subject criteria, language and more. It is advisable to apply limits one at a time, to see how each affects the search results.

Keyword Searches You always have the option to search for a term as a keyword or phrase: simply type it in the search box on the front page of PubMed, rather than using the MeSH Database. Use quotation marks for multi-word phrases. Since the MeSH term Cultural Competency is new, the phrase was likely used by authors before it was assigned to any articles, and it is a good idea to run this keyword search in addition to using MeSH.

Combining Search Results You can run searches for several different terms separately and then combine your results. Click on Advanced Search to see a list of searches you have completed.

Combining Searches, Continued Right-click the number next to a search and select: - AND (if you want results to contain both of the terms from the initial searches) - OR (if you want results to contain either of the terms from the initial searches)

Example: Use of ‘OR’ If a MeSH term is new, as with Cultural Competency, it may be helpful to combine several related terms or phrases using OR to cover that broader concept.

Example: Use of ‘AND’ If you are interested in cultural competency as it relates to a specific issue, for example Language, you can then search for this term as well and combine it with your main set using AND.

Viewing and Accessing Results Results of the most recent search will normally be displayed. To see results for an earlier search, click Advanced Search and click on the number listed to the right of any search.

Article Information Click the title of an article to see the abstract (if available) and other citation information. Look for a full-text link at the upper right if BU has an online subscription to the journal. The Find@BU link will search the catalog to see if the journal is available in print.

Article Information, Continued Scroll down and click on Publication Types, MeSH Terms to see terms used to index an article. If any of these look useful, you can click to add them to your search. This can be a good way to find relevant terms for a search.

PubMed Help • Alumni Medical Library tutorials: http://medlib.bu.edu/tutorials/medline/ • Reference Desk, staffed 8:30am-5:00pm weekdays • Meet with a librarian: call or email to make an appointment

Other Useful Databases MEDLINE is the primary resource for biomedical journal articles, but other databases may also be helpful: • Academic OneFile • CINAHL (Cumulated Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature) • PsycINFO • Web of Knowledge

Accessing Databases Access databases on the Alumni Medical Library homepage under E-Resources

Academic OneFile Academic OneFile lists articles from journals covering a broad range of subjects. While it does not primarily focus on medical topics, useful articles can still be found here.

Academic OneFile: Subject Subject Guide Search: • Cultural Competence • Multiculturalism

Academic OneFile: Keyword Advanced Search: • Keyword phrase: cultural* competen* Also try adding specific language, country or cultural keywords depending on the information need.

Academic OneFile: Results You can refine results by adding more search terms, or by limiting to publication type, document type, date, etc.

CINAHL CINAHL (Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers major nursing and allied health journals. It will not always be relevant for biomedical searches, but it can be a good source of information on some topics.

CINAHL: Subject CINAHL Headings (subject search): • Cultural Competence • Cultural Sensitivity (used before 1994)

CINAHL: Keyword Advanced Search: Select TX All Text and enter keyword phrase: cultural* competen*

CINAHL: Results You can narrow and limit results, add extra search terms, or search the library catalog for the journal.

CINAHL: Results Click an article title to see the full reference and the subject terms used to index it. If one of them seems relevant, you can click to run a search for that term.

PsycINFO PsycINFO (and PsycARTICLES, a subset that includes only full-text articles) searches the psychological literature. PsycINFO is larger (including all information from the PsycARTICLES subset), so for a broad search, you will want to use it even though many results are not full-text. If you want only full-text results, you may wish to use PsycARTICLES. Both may be searched in the same way.

PsycINFO: Subject Thesaurus (Subject) Search: • Cross Cultural Differences • Cultural Sensitivity • Multiculturalism • Sociocultural Factors

PsycINFO: Combining Subjects Try combining subject headings: ((DE "Cultural Sensitivity") or (DE "Cross Cultural Differences") or (DE "Sociocultural Factors") or (DE "Multiculturalism")) You can also apply various limits to narrow the search.

PsycINFO: Keyword Advanced Search: Select TX All Text and enter “cultural* competen*." Depending on the specific topic, you may also wish to try other keywords for language, country, etc.

PsycINFO: Results You can narrow and limit results, add extra search terms, or access full text (if available).

PsycINFO: Results Click the article title to see the full reference and subject terms used to index it. If one of the other indexing terms seems relevant, you can click to run a search for that term.

Cultural Competency