Latino Health Culture

Introduction

Cultural considerations that impact the Latino in healthcare

In our society there are many different cultural groups with varying beliefs when it comes to healthcare. There are many different cultures in our society today and they play an important part with patient compliance in their treatment and beliefs about their health. As a professional nurse we must educate ourselves in how this will affect their time with us and how we can better care for them. In this paper we will examine the Latino culture and answer the following, what is their health culture practices and beliefs, what are their family patters and nutritional patterns, how do they respond to pain and child birth. Is space a consideration, do they need time set aside

Some may communicate with spirits via a séance while in a trance or channeling. The traditional Mexican culture believe that illness results from three causes: which include that of imbalance, sin and even witchcraft. There are a number who are accepting of our Western medicine. The culture looks at physical as well as mental illness is God’s way of conveying unhappiness with a person. They think that a person with any emotional illness may then cause a physical illness in their body from too much stress. For this group life is all about balance and imbalance is what makes a person sick. Each person is responsible for his or her on balance and maintaining it. Mexicans or Latinos believe that imbalance result from hot or cold. When a person has an imbalance of their humors it is thought to cause either emotional or physical. Touching a child’s head is believed to cause an illness called caida de la mollera, which involves dehydration and vomiting and results in a fallen fontanel. Each sait has a specialized religious function: Cancer: St. Peregrine; Dying: St. Joseph; Bodily ills: Our Lady of Lourdes; Infertility: St. Anne; Chronic Illness: St. Juliana Falconierei; AIDS patients and caregivers: St. Aloysius Gonzaga; Arthritis/

Even though here in Texas we have to notify Life Gift autopsies and organ donations are usually resisted, especially by Catholics, but also by others. A display of public expression of grief is to be expected, especially among the women in the family. In the health care setting we have many polices that sometimes do not go along with some of the cultural that we deal with. We find that many of our hospitals and nurses go too much by the book and need to show more flexibility with our rules. It can often be difficult to accommodate a patient’s wishes without having a conflict of hospital rules. In one of the Hispanic/Latino cultures when a person is sick or dying, close family members such as the spouse, children, parents, etc. may all sit in a circle around a carefully selected food item, such as a fruit dish, placed in the middle of the room. In this culture they may spend the night conducting religious practices and praying. Some will even have a dish that sits in the center of the circle. As a result, it becomes a holy dish that holds a great religious significance; the family believes that the holy object can assist their sick or dying loved one. This dish is given many times to the nurse or others that have cared for the patient they are expecting their full compliance in placing it next to the patient to