Examples Of Mental Health Bias

987 Words2 Pages

Understanding a Bias, it is preference to favor one over another. Bias can be conscious and non-conscious. It can be positive or negative (Ryan. V. & Saha. S, 2011). I believe that I form my bias between the younger and older generation regarding beliefs, politics, or values. I am mindful that I incline to blame it on the generation gap whenever I see there is a conflict between older and younger generation. Second, I think people with mental illnesses are dangerous and should be avoided.
I was born and raised up in Nepal. My father is a retired British army officer and my mother is a housewife who has no formal education. Nepal is a country where access to better healthcare and related information is very limited. The majority of the population …show more content…

However, I was not surprised that the mental health IAT result predicted that I am moderately implicitly think people with mental health illness are dangerous. As I had mentioned above that the culture believes that mental illness is an evil eye, nobody talks about this to outside people. This beliefs and values still live within the older generation of my family. To share my personal story, my brother-in-law was mentally unstable and depressed. Even though my sister and her families knew his condition, they denied medical help. In addition, they felt embarrassed and scared to admit his condition openly. Because of the beliefs and cultural norm, he was denied of a medical help. At the end he committed a suicide. It was very painful to see my families’ grief and how it affected their health later …show more content…

For example, in my past work experience, one of the Hispanic teen patient was admitted into the hospital for abdominal pain. During education on diet regimen, patient became upset because I was teaching him to avoid spicy foods, chilies, lemons, etc. and consume healthy diets. The patient replied “I’m Mexican, it doesn’t mean I eat spicy foods”. Another example, a Vietnamese adult patient did not sign a consent form and her surgery was on hold for three days. The patient requested to wait for her grandfather to arrive from overseas to consent for her. I understood that in Asian culture, high value is placed on the decision of elders, the role of eldest male or female in families, or roles and expectation of children within the family (Galanti, 2008, page 31-33).
As a primary care nurse practitioner, my cultural bias could affect to some extent on delivering care to these populations, both good and bad. But, understanding about cultures and beliefs and learning to deliver a culture sensitive care every day is one of the ways I can become more effective. In addition, the suicidal event of my brother- in- law gave me the strength to raise an awareness of the risks related to mental diseases and the importance of early

Open Document