This assignment will look at the impact of culture in professional practice and how it will affect patients and their needs in nursing. ‘Culture’ refers to the ways in which people in a given society live together and how they communicate with each other (Hendry,2008). The aspects of culture this assignment will look at are religion, language and gender and how nurses develop cultural competency and cultural sensitivity towards their patients.
Culture is a set of beliefs, values and attitudes that a person inherits from a society or a group that they are in and they learn how to view the world and how to behave, these principles can then be passed down from generation to generation so that the culture that has been inherited can live on for
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personal cleansing and hygiene. There are also some patients who will only want a female nurse or male nurse to attend to their personal care; there are some nurses who are in danger of ignoring certain cultures that some patients have therefore not giving the patient the right care that they need. Which is why cultural competency is absolutely important, to offer culturally competent care is imperative as nurses have to support patient’s decisions made by their family members or from the patient, the decision may come from a cultural perspective which may not sit well for nurses. Truong, Paradies, and Priest (2014) found evidence of improvement in nurses and other healthcare providers when it comes to cultural competency knowledge and …show more content…
This causes problems about the diagnosis as well as how nurses may tell patients about issues with their care. A way a nurse can overcome this is by having an interpreter when they know that a patient doesn’t know English, but this is not always the case for most nurses as there are not a lot of interpreters around. In health practice language isn’t always to do with culture but it can be the way a nurse or doctor speaks to the patients so they may adopt certain types of jargon and the patients may feel intimidated. Madeleine Leininger, who is the founder of transcultural nursing, says that providing competent care across all cultures and to be customized to fit patient’s different beliefs and traditions and different languages that a patient may speak. Divi et al (2007) claims that language barriers increase the risk of patient care and safety as they will find it difficult to understand what is going on with their care, so it is important for patients to have access to language services such as an
These differences in origin accounts for diversity in socio-cultural backgrounds and nurses must develop the knowledge and the skills to engage patients from different cultures and to understand the beliefs and the values of those cultures (Jarvis, 2012). If healthcare professionals focus only on a narrowly defined biomedical approach to the treatment of disease, they will often misunderstand their patients, miss valuable diagnostic cues, and experience higher rates of patient noncompliance with therapies. Thus, it is important for a nurse to know what sociocultural background a patient is coming from in order to deliver safe an effective
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
There are cultures that have very different views on things such as family dynamics and health care than what I’m used to. For example, there are some cultures that do not believe in seeking healthcare when they are ill or receiving medications or blood if needed. However, my family always believed in taking us to the doctor and taking medications when we were ill. There are also some cultures that have very large families that they are very close to however I always had a small close-knit family. I am able to see how these different scenarios could affect the nursing care provided by assuming that other people and families have the same beliefs that my family had growing up. However, this is why it is important to ask questions and do research about a particular culture before making assumptions. I also believe it is very important to avoid assuming that all cultures are the same just because they are of a certain culture or ethnicity. Beliefs and rituals can differ amongst people of the same community. Therefore, it is essential to get to know your patients and have an understanding of their beliefs as an
Today when people move across continents with the help of technology their culture and heritage moves along with them. Almost each and every continent is populated with people from different nations who have diverse traditions and cultures. Thus knowledge of health traditions and culture plays a vital role in nursing. People from different cultures have a unique view on health and illness. Culture-specific care is a vital skill to the modern nurse, as the United States continues to consist of many immigrants who have become assimilated into one culture. I interviewed three families of different cultures: - Indian (my culture), Hispanic and Chinese. Let us see the differences in health traditions between these cultures.
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.
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.
In the clinical setting, nurses are believed to spend the most time with patients. This involves regularly dealing with people coming from different ethnicities and with different cultural practices and beliefs (Brown & Edwards, 2012). Given this cultural diversity, every patient may have his/her own cultural beliefs and practices regarding his/her own health and its treatment which can be similar or different to those ...
trust of the patient, if language is a barrier the nurse should pay attention to the means of
Understanding cultural differences not only improves the effectiveness of the treatment the patient receives, it is also help the nurse to prevent negliency of care. It is impostant to maintain a curiosity about each patient no matter how much we know abouth that person's culture.
Cultural competence can be defined as using the ability of one’s awareness, attitude, knowledge and skill to effectively interact with a patient’s many cultural differences. Madeline Leininger, a pioneer on transcultural nursing describes it this way; “a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human-care differences and similarities of the beliefs, values and patterned lifeways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people” (Barker, 2009, p. 498). The importance of cultural diversity in healthcare allows for the delivery of appropriate cultural autonomy. Showing respect for others will lead to trust between nurse and patient which in turn improves healing and health.
Characteristics can be as diverse as ethnic background, language spoken, gender status, physical appearance, race, and religion to name a few. Migration from various countries is creating a diverse population with different cultures and languages within the United States. Due to these cultural differences and lack of knowledge, disparities are increasing. Studies have shown that both language barriers and lack of cultural customs can hinder the services provided to the patient by the healthcare worker (Renzaho, Romios, Crock, & Sonderlund, 2013). This study provided a positive outcome when communication and cultural mutual understanding took place and patients had a more positive health outcome. It is very important that nurses are diversified in various cultures in order to better care for our patients. According to Mareno and Hart (2014), cultural competency has become one of the core values being taught in nursing programs. Their study showed that the perceived level of cultural awareness and skills among the nurses provided was low. Awareness and knowledge levels increased with higher education. It was highly recommended that self-awareness exercises be incorporated into the nursing course and continued to be addressed during the remaining curriculum until
Miller, Leininger, Leuning, Pacquiao, Andrews, and Ludwig-Beyer, (2008) support that the skill of cultural competency in nursing is the ability to gather relevant cultural data on the presenting problem of the patient. This cultural assessment is defined as a "...
What is culture? Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.