The Importance Of Culture On Nursing

Culture is a formation of learned behaviors and results of behavior whose constituent elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society (Linton, 1945). By living in a culture, individual learn to accept certain beliefs about health and illness that are influenced by history, religion, age, gender, socioeconomic, technology. Health along with other phenomena is a social construction interpreted within a multiple societies of forces that combine to create and adjust the phenomenon (Brown, 1995).

Hong Kong is an international city, embraces different people came from different countries and places over the world. They have their own culture, lifestyle and behavior, which are mostly influenced by their particular cultural

In Chinese culture, client may perceive his illness due to upset of the equilibrium or the proportion of the elements. For instance, Chen and his parents imputed Chen’s mental problem is due to increased heat in his body. In western culture, patient thought that the illness may be the result of body dysfunction. So that David claimed that his mental problem was due to a malfunction of the brain. From the above cases, we can find that the culture shapes their perceptions of health and illness

However, the racial and ethnic composition of Hong Kong has changed significantly in recent years. As a result of this, the cultural diversity in the hospital is increasing. According to Food and Health Bureau, there were 2.5 thousands of attendances of non-eligible persons for AED services in 2010-2011 (Chow, 2012). Therefore, plans to care for these ethnically and culturally diverse patients must include providers with an understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity (Bussey-Jones & Genao, 2003).

Language and patterns of communication are key components of culture and can be obstacles in providing good care. For instance, most of the new immigrant from China Mainland, they spoke in dialect or with the accent, resulted in nursing staff decreased understanding of client’s request which leads to a poor nurse-client