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Because of globalization, immigration, and mass exodus from countries due to political conflicts, there is an ever-changing mix of people with diverse cultural backgrounds who require institutions to provide continuing education to ensure that effective services are provided to everyone. Part of the transcultural challenges involves religion, socioeconomic differences and languages, and ethnic backgrounds that differ. The objective of this study was to examine whether a transcultural training program for undergraduate nursing students in Israel could enhance students' cultural competence. In this study, 319 senior undergraduate nursing students were asked to complete the Transcultural Health Care Screening Questionnaire as a measure of their cultural competence. The students' cultural competence was satisfactory but less than it had been in previous years. The authors suggest that cultural competence needs to be considered as a contextual, developmental, and experiential process that requires ongoing attention and curricular revisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Willingness to donate organs is contingent upon knowledge about and attitude toward organ donation. In order to explore differences between members of the three monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, a nation-wide survey was conducted in Israel. Members of all three religions expressed a very low willingness to donate organs postmortem. They had similar levels of knowledge regarding organ donation and similar negative attitudes toward organ donation. The public feels negative regarding the issue, therefore education campaigns should be designed and implemented in order to refute potential misconceptions and hence increase the number of people who sign donor cards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Background Methods Results Conclusions Clinical Relevance This study examines whether racism exists among Jewish and Arab patients in Israel, as reflected in patient preference for receiving treatment from a nurse with the same ethnic background.We examine the relationship between racism and the level of trust in a nurse from a different ethnic group than the patient, as well as the preferred level of social distance, in the context of ongoing conflicts between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority in Israel.A cross‐sectional study was conducted using a unique study questionnaire that asked 534 Jewish and 478 Arab respondents to express their preference for an Arab and a Jewish nurse.Among both the Jews and the Arabs, there is a similar tendency of racism toward nurses of the dissimilar ethnic group. This racism was also prevalent among participants who live in a mixed environment or those who studied or are studying and worked or work in a mixed environment. As the trust in nursing staff members from the other group increases, the level of racism decreases. The greater the social distance the participants felt from the members of the other group, the more racist the attitudes they expressed.Both Jews and Arabs preferred to be treated by nurses of their own ethnic group. In contrast to the contact hypothesis theory, participants who live in a mixed environment did not express fewer racist preferences. We conclude with some useful practical suggestions aimed at decreasing racism in health care.Findings imply that prospective patients prefer to receive nursing care from nurses of their own ethnic group and trust these nurses more than they trust nurses of different ethnic group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kidney transplantation has developed to the stage where it is currently the most cost-effective treatment for patients suffering from end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) and, when available, offers them the highest quality of life. Yet, kidney transplantation is challenged by cultural and traditional beliefs; thus, this study sought to evaluate the willingness to pay for a kidney transplant in a culturally sensitive population. A self-administered survey was completed by 734 end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients. A quantitative method and survey design were chosen and employed descriptive, correlational, nonparametric, and multivariate statistical tests. Participants were willing to pay a mean amount of $40 751.36 for a living donor kidney transplant, whereas the mean is considerably lower, $18 350.51, for a deceased donor kidney. Significant predictors of the willingness to pay (WTP) for a kidney transplant from a living donor and a deceased donor were found, among them: religiosity and ethnicity. The participants' willingness to pay for a kidney transplant could attest to significant benefits in enhancing patient well-being. The willingness to pay differentially for a donation from a deceased or a living donor stems from the higher chances of success with a living-donor organ as well as from moral and religious motives. In Israel kidney transplantation is not tradable in the free market and is fully funded by the state. The average cost of kidney transplantation in Israel is $61 714.50. Since the cost exceeds the utility and since the economic literature suggests that the funding of healthcare interventions should be provided up to the point where the costs of that funding equal the benefits that society derives from it, crucial revisions in public health policy should be made. Education may have a significant impact on the approach to kidney donation and organ donation in general.