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Cultural awareness in healthcare essay
Culture, Health Promotion, and Cultural Competence
Cultural considerations in health care
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Abstract This paper explores the concept of culture, its definitions, and its application to nursing and health care. Culture is a group's customs, habits, morals, and shared beliefs. The understanding of culture, not only as a concept, but how it relates to health care is imperative for providers. The lack of cultural awareness, or competency, leads to miscommunication, inadequacy of care, and health disparities among individuals and groups. Jehovah’s Witness’ are one group of individuals with defined morals and beliefs that can be at odds with routine health care: they do not accept most blood products. Understanding how culture can impact a patient, their needs, and beliefs can improve patient outcomes and improve satisfaction rates. Keywords: culture, competence, nursing Culture Concept Analysis Over the years, the word culture has taken on numerous definitions. Culture was first described in the eighteenth century as the cultivation of the soil to help grow …show more content…
“An individual’s culture shapes how he or she understands, seeks, reacts to, and expresses feelings about health care throughout the continuum of wellness, including presickness, sickness, and recovery” (Marzilli, 2014, p. 230). Understanding how culture can impact a patient, their needs, and beliefs can improve patient outcomes and improve satisfaction rates. References Dreher, M. and MacNaughton, N. (2002). Cultural competence in nursing: Foundation or fallacy?. Nursing Outlook, 50(5), pp.181-186. Marion, L., Douglas, M., Lavin, M., Barr, N., Gazaway, S., Thomas, L. and Bickford, C. (2016). Implementing the New ANA Standard 8: Culturally Congruent Practice. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 22(1). Marzilli, C. (2014). Concept Analysis of Culture Applied to Nursing. Creative Nursing, 20(4),
Jean Giddens (2013) defines culture as “a pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, self-definitions, norms, roles, and values that can occur among those who speak a particular language, or live in a defined geographical region.” (Giddens, 2013). A person’s culture influences every aspect that person’s life. Beliefs affected by culture include how someone interacts within the family, how to raise children, the types of foods eaten, the style of clothes chosen, which religion is practiced, and the style of communication (including verbal, and body language, slang used etc.) (Giddens, 2013). In addition to these beliefs, health care practices are also affected by culture. The cause
Issues of culture are often controversial. LaBorde (2010) has noted that culture is always a factor in conflict. Ironically, conflict can provide nurses with an excellent opportunity for developing compassion that will lead nurses unto a place of meeting in which there is a deep respect for differences and equally intentional openness to the possibility of connection. Healthcare practitioners are confronted in a daily basis with the practical manifestation of these issues. In particular, nurses are more confronted by cultural issues than the other healthcare providers because nurses spend majority of their time with patients. However, some nurses are reluctant to confront and discuss the cultural issues because of lack of knowledge in dealing with patients of diverse cultures (Tjale & Villiers, 2004).
Integrating the framework will enable nurses to become culturally competent health care providers. First and foremost, the framework permit patients’ the opportunity to express their concerns and perception of their problem (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). Additionally, it focuses on incorporating the patients beliefs, values, and needs into the plan of care. The framework further give nurses an opportunity to better understand and evaluate their patients’ concerns. Campinha-Bacote (2011) reported that continuous encounters with culturally diverse backgrounds will lead nurses to validate, refine, or modify what they know of existing values, beliefs, and practices of a cultural group. This in turn, will develop into cultural desire, cultural awareness, and cultural knowledge. With the end result, being cultural
Providing culturally competent care is a vital responsibility of a nurse’s role in healthcare. “Culturally competent care means conveying acceptance of the patient’s health beliefs while sharing information, encouraging self-efficiency, and strengthening the patients coping resources” (Giddens, 2013). Competence is achieved through and ongoing process of understanding another culture and learning to accept and respect the differences.
Nurses have the obligation to be culturally competent and to provide culturally congruent patient care practices. This is importance to nursing profession and the practice implications of culturally competent care have been supported through evidence-based data. It is important to note that care is the foundation of nursing practice; and the practice
Cultural competence like so many other social constructs has been defined in various ways. One particular definition as determined by the Office of Minority Health states cultural competence is a set of behaviors, attitudes, and policies that are systematically exercised by health care professionals which enables the ability to effectively work among and within cross-cultural situations (Harris, 2010). Betancourt (2005) implied cultural competence is starting to be seen as a real strategy to help with improving healthcare quality and eliminating the injustices pertaining to healthcare delivery and healthcare access. This appeal is gaining favor from healthcare policy makers, providers, insurers and
As nurses entering the medical field understanding the culture of our patients is crucial to proper care. Each culture has their own set of beliefs and values that are shared among groups of people which influences personality, language, lifestyles, house hold, level modesty, social standings, foods, health treatment and identity. Culture affects how people view health and illness; dictating when, where and what type of medical treatment they will receive and who will be their care provider.
As a working nurse on an acute behavioral health unit, emergency department, case management, cultural awareness is crucial when treating a diverse population of patients. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH), cultural competence is, “is a set of behaviors, attitudes, and skills that enables nurses to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (Garcia, 2007, p. 1). It is important for nurses to deliver culturally competent and appropriate care to patients due to the perpetually growing culture of diversity. My workplace is located in Orange, California. Demographically, the city is made up of 47 percent Caucasian, 38 percent Hispanic, 11 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 1 percent Black, and 3 percent other races. I am an American-Filipino, born and raised in California, and identify with the 11 percent Asian/Pacific Islander group. It is necessary that working nurses have cultural awareness and the skills necessary to service patients of any race or ethnicity. We can do this by educating ourselves and being mindful of all different cultures.
Transcultural nursing requires us to care for our patients by providing culturally sensitive care to a broad spectrum of patients. The purpose of this post is to describe cultural baggage, ethnocentrism, cultural imposition, prejudice, discrimination, and cultural congruence. I will also give an example of each term to help you understand the terminology related to nursing care. I will define cultural self-assessment and explain why it is valuable for nurses to understand what their own self-assessment means. Finally, I will describe the five steps to delivering culturally congruent nursing care and how I have applied these concepts to my nursing practice.
The term culture is defined as “the thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups” (Potter & Perry, 2013). With the increase of culturally diverse populations in the United States, it is important for nurses to practice cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability to acquire specific behaviors, skills, attitudes, and policies in a system that permits “effective work in a cross-cultural setting” (OMH, 2013). Being culturally competent is essential because nurses who acknowledges and respects a patient’s health beliefs and practices are more likely to have positive health outcomes (OMH, 2012). Every culture has certain views and attitudes concerning health. The Jewish (also referred to as Jews), in particular, have intriguing health practices and beliefs that health care providers need to be aware of.
Cultural and social structure dimensions include factors related to religion, social structure, political/legal concerns, economics, educational patterns, the use of technologies, values within a cultural context. Culturally competent nursing care can only occur when the client’s beliefs and values are thoughtfully and skillfully
No matter what unit a nurse is placed in a hospital, or where a nurse is employed in a primary care setting, we are faced with cultural needs everyday. This is why a nurse must be culturally competent and culturally congruent. This is very important to patient interactions because as a nurse we are responsible for providing patient care, and it is our job to make sure the care we are providing to one client is the same to another. As Duffy stated, “students are encouraged to learn about each culture, by learning the unique characteristics of a group with a common race, ethnicity, or other distinguishing feature.” This means that there is a known heed for more culturally educated nurses, and the best place to begin educating these individuals is in the classroom before they become registered nurses. However, the author then continues on to state, “despite the increased emphasis on cultural education in nursing worldwide, culturally based problems persist.” (Duffy, 2009). This is a growing issue because as our population is expanding and technology makes it easier and easier to travel, we are continually exposed to new people with ...
Cultural competence for advanced practice nurses is defined as the willingness or the desire to understand another person’s culture, the ability to learn about a diverse cultural belief systems, and to work effectively as a healthcare professional understanding the dynamics of the patient’s culture as it relates to their relationships, care, and overall health. Awareness of one’s own culture, along with the understanding of other cultures, and how that relates to nursing care is essential to improve outcomes for patients (Kardong-Edgren et al., 2010). This paper will review a personal account of my cultural awareness and cultural beliefs. Cultural competence will be discussed as it relates to nursing theory and application
As a nurse strive to provide culturally sensitive care, they must recognize how their client's and their perceptions are similiar as well as different. Nurse enhance their ability to provide client-centered care by reflecting on how their beliefs and values impact the nurse-patient relationship. To provide appropriate patient care, the nurse must understand her/his culture and that of the nurse profession. Cultural biases can be particularly difficult to identify when the nurse and client are of a similar cultural backgroup. When we recognize and know a culture, we will know what is right for our patient, and thus may impose our own values on the client by assuming our values are their values. Recognizing differences a present an opportunity not only to know the other, but also to help gain a greater sense of self. In this paper, I will explain more about diversity and cultural competence in case study.
Researching and developing awareness of different cultures beliefs, values, and practice can help aid with providing cultural competent care. As a healthcare professional, this is an essential competent for caring for patient of different ethnicity group. “Organizations and individuals who understand their clients’ cultural values, beliefs, and practices are in a better position to be co-participants with their clients in providing culturally acceptable care” (Purnell & Paulanka, 2008, p. 2). During the beginning of this course, I had taken a cultural competency quiz regarding my responses to the patient cultural values and belief practices. I will later discuss how my results from the cultural competency quiz changed