Nursing Research Review
The article “Improving the Cultural Competence of Nursing Students: Results of Integrating Cultural Content in the Curriculum and an International Immersion Experience” is devoted to the research of effect of integrating cultural content (ICC) and methods of its evaluating. It concerns nursing students self perceived cultural competence. This study was held among undergraduate students and those, who were participants of a 5-week clinical immersion in international nursing (ICC Plus). The task was to compare the skills of cultural competence in this two researched groups.  The cultural competence was measured with a 28-item scale and consisted of two components: pretest and posttest. The results of the tests related to perceived cultural competence and were rather informative. And according to the two-phase development of cultural competence worked out by Wells these results included a cognitive and effective phases.  The cognitive phase responds to a gaining of cultural knowledge and the effective phase - to the cultural sensitivity and  proficiency.
 The necessity of integrating of cultural content into the nursing curriculum was expressed by a number of institutions  among which are : The National League or Nursing,  The American Academy of Nursing,  The American Association of Colleges of Nursing and others.  The cultural competence has become a significant element of nursing professional education because of multicultural trends of U.S. population.  
At the bottom of the cultural competent care are values and attitudes which can be formed in the process cultural interaction. And from the words of St. Clair and McKenry it is impossible to achieve cultural competence without  an opportunity to live at least for a while within another culture. So the aim of the study is to determine which cultural level should be expected of nursering graduates and how this students’ self-perceived cultural competence may be achieved. 
For analyzing this problem a comparative quantitative research was used. It was based on The Caffrey Cultural Competence in Healthcare Scale  (CCCHS) and the model of the asked items which was rating scale of respondents self-perceived knowledge, self-awareness and comfort with skills of cultural competence.  This scale contained 28 items requesting a self-rating on a Likert scale and included several categories concerning cultural knowledge, awareness and comfort. 
In the process of the study a valuating comparison of changes in mean cultural competence of the students of the ICC and ICC Plus groups due to results of both tests was made. This information was organized in a table in order to specify the size effect of each item in both groups.  The results  showed the improvement in cultural competence in both groups but still the effect sizes were different. The ICC Plus group demonstrated better results. 
The change score on the overall CCCHS was also studied because the change at the individual student level is important for the educators as well. The students demonstrated moderate improvement. But the students from ICC Plus group made more success in their perceived cultural competence due to the immersion program. Thus the ICC group students have got less experience.  So St. Claire and McKenry were right underlining the importance of international  experience in the development of cultural competence. 
However this research has several limitations.  The question of relevance of this study is open as it is rather hard to identify the direct connection between cultural competence and actual practice. The criteria of the students selection are quite narrow. For example an acceptable academic standing cannot always precede the good results in cultural sphere.  The sample was small too. The chosen participants do not depict all the population of interest for this experimental study.   The participants should represent the shear of all types of individual abilities and features.  And the quantity of the participants should be bigger, though used methods were rather reliable and sensitive. 
The influence of the cultural competence on the practical sphere should be studied more profound. Hence, to persuade in appropriateness of the results of this studying to its main question this research should be repeated and some other research methods should be used.  Of course the self perceived cultural experience is very  useful but often is not enough to provide a good quality of nursing job. The specific educational course on culture can give necessary knowledge and habits in nursing when facing patients – representatives of other culture.  Additional studying must be held to define the contents of such curriculum course.
As the result of the current study has showed the importance of the international immersion experience is obvious. It helps to form needed values and attitudes as the foundation for a commitment to providing culturally competent care.  But to form the concrete criteria of requirements for nursing students these different cultures and the possible behavior patterns should be also deeply studied from the point of view of the qualitative  medical nursering care.  
Thus such a complicated study object can not be completely researched with help of just one experimental study.  The question of intercultural competence faces the knot of different sciences. So the study of this problem has to take into account all the details, correlation and potential consequences of all the possible factors that can influence the cultural side of nursering activity.