Factor analysis of a modified version of the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale with minority pharmacy students.

While most of the more frequently used self-report measures of cultural competence in health professionals are targeted to practicing physicians and mental health providers from the majority-white population, no measures have been specifically developed for minority pharmacy students. With the objective to find a suitable tool to be used for curriculum development in cultural competence, this study applied a modified version of the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale (CBMCS) to 467 pharmacy students at the Xavier University of Louisiana, a Historically Black University. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to examine if the CBMCS factor structure was replicated using a modified tool and a different population and Cronbach alphas were calculated to determine internal consistency reliability. The CBMCS's original factor structure was not replicated, perhaps because of modifications introduced in the original tool or because of differences between the sample population in this study (minority pharmacy students) and the population used in the original CBMCS study (majority-white mental health providers). However, results show that a modified factor structure fits the data well. The primary difference between the factors found in this study and the CBMCS factors is the appearance of a new factor composed of three items related to interpersonal and racial dynamics, which includes racial discrimination, white privilege, and power imbalance. The significant relationships (p < 0.001) found between respondents' race and these three items suggest that the wording in these items should be modified when the respondents do not belong to the majority population. Results imply that racism, prejudice and bias are not just issues of the majority-white health providers and point to the need for more racially diverse samples. The unique results in this study advance research on racial dynamics and self-assessment of cultural competence of minority health professionals.