Web-Based Intercultural Given to Midwifery Students The Effect of Midwifery Education on Cultural Sensitivity and Cultural Skill Level

International migrations have caused cultural diversity in societies (Foronda, 2008). Individuals from different societies have different needs due to habits from their cultures (Foronda, 2008; Henderson et al., 2018; Sharifi et al., 2019). Cultural diversity in countries has made the delivery of effective healthcare services difficult (Henderson et al., 2018). In this respect, the vaccination of the concepts of cultural competence and cultural sensitivity, which were popular in health service delivery, has become an international requirement for health professionals by coming to the fore in the literature (Henderson et al., 2018; Sharifi et al., 2019).

Lack of awareness about providing effective healthcare to patients from different cultures raises concerns about disrupting patient-clinician communication and causing inequality of access to care (Watt et al., 2016; Sharifi et al., 2019; Gungor et al., 2021). A society's values, beliefs, language characteristics, cultural structure, and living condition shape health promotion and protection behaviors (Henderson et al., 2018; Beser et al., 2021). On the other hand, providing culturally adequate and responsive care can be achieved by ensuring appropriate intercultural communication and approach competence (Çingöl et al., 2021). Health professionals who have cultural skills can act according to the rules and values of the society in which they provide health services, with high empathy skills, respect different cultures, and the most appropriate forms of communication with the culture (Mobula et al., 2015, Yılmaz et al., 2019).

The cultural or traditional practices are high in pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum practices (Çakır Koçak & Sevil, 2015; Altuntuğ et al., 2018). The midwives should be sensitive to cultural differences to provide effective cultural care (Yılmaz et al., 2019; Guner et al., 2022). For this reason, it was necessary to integrate effective and appropriate cultural approaches to midwifery, which is closely related to women's health (Fleming et al., 2017; Beser et al., 2021; Gungor et al., 2021). At this point, it seems inevitable to prioritize the issues of raising awareness of cultural competence in midwifery education (Briscoe, 2013; Guner et al., 2022). The multicultural structure of Turkish society necessitates the informational support of midwives in understanding cultural differences, being sensitive, and meeting the needs of the society (Yılmaz et al., 2019; Guner et al., 2022). In the literature, to provide healthcare professionals with cultural competence and cultural sensitivity skills during undergraduate education were recommeded (Mobula et al., 2015; Yılmaz et al., 2019; Guner et al., 2022).

In a limited number of non-invasive studies on the subject, the focus was on defining the cultural competence and awareness of health professionals and students studying in the field of health (Aghajari et al., 2019; Shepherd et al., 2019; Beser et al., 2021; Çiftçi et al., 2021; Gungor et al., 2021). In some of the studies, the lack of interventional studies on increasing cultural skills was emphasized (Shepherd et al., 2019; Guner et al., 2022). In their study, Çingöl et al. (2021) reported that students' self-confidence and empathic skills increased in cultural sensitivity and intercultural communication as a result of an intercultural nursing course intervention. On the other hand, there is no interventional and multicenter study in the literature in which the cultural approaches of midwives and midwife candidates were developed. At this point, considering the prevalence of internet use worldwide (66.2%) (Internet World Stats, 2022), midwife candidates may gain cultural competencies through web-based training. The original results obtained from this study can contribute to the development of techniques that can be adapted to the cultural values of the societies where midwifery services are provided. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of web-based intercultural midwifery training given to students on students' cultural sensitivity and cultural skill level.