The Importance of Culturally Competent Nursing Care

INTRODUCTION

Watson (2005) suggested that nurse’s and patient’s relationships can be therapeutic, because it is presumed to enhance the patient’s well-being and the likelihood of gaining independence quickly; He went further to argue that nurses and patients are supposed to have a mutual relationship based on trust and respect, which would help foster the patient’s physiological and psychological needs towards recovery.

The aforementioned phenomenon was exhibited when a group of nursing students went on a professional cultural immersion to Toronto, Canada and they discovered that diverse or differential cultures existing between the nurses and the patient may create an obstacle to nurses-patient’s relationships, however, once this is mitigated, the relationship is assumed to move on smoothly (www.salem.kent.edu, 2014).

As expected; Nursing’s study progression over the years provides nurses (either in training or in practice) the opportunity to acquire technical and theoretical competence which is universally regulated and conferred, however, this might be questioned when situations that highlights cultural diversity presents hindrances like inability of the nurses and the patients to relate effectively (West 1994).

Furthermore, relevant studies has suggested that nurses are more likely to fail in providing sensitive and essential healthcare to clients (patients) from different sub-cultural entities due to basic hindrances like the difference in languages which would create a barrier in effective communication which is integral to the care giver’s understanding of the patient’s complaints (Gerrish and Papadopoulos, 1999). Therefore, the study suggested that nurses should be able to operate and interact with diverse culture, in ...

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