It is when a health professional recognises a client's or patient's culture is different from his or her own and engages in an equal partnership of negotiation when facilitating care. Health professionals need to progress through three stages of learning to reach the fourth stage of cultural competence:
A.
The first stage is cultural awareness, when we recognise another person's cultural identity, heritage, ethnohistory and stereotype.
B.
The second stage is gaining the necessary cultural knowledge to understand the client's or patient's health beliefs, anthropological, sociological and biological differences, and health inequalities.
C.
The third stage is cultural sensitivity, when the professional uses empathy, interprofessional communication skills, trust, respect, acceptance, appropriateness, and awareness of the barriers that impede sensitive practice.
D.
The final stage is cultural competence, when a health professional uses appropriate assessment and diagnostic and clinical skills to challenge prejudice, discrimination and inequality to provide quality care.