A Brief Note On Culturally Appropriate Care

Cultural competence is the ability to interact well with people of different cultural backgrounds (Rundle, 2002). It provides the best ways of meeting the needs of diverse patient population which is always on the increase, as well as ways of effectively advocating for them. This means that cultural competence has the benefit of enabling nurses to deliver services that respect and effectively respond to health beliefs and practice needs of diverse patients. Through the process of globalization, nurses are moving to places of nursing shortage to offer their knowledge and skills beyond their home

Cultural safety and patient centred care are terms commonly used in the training of health care professionals. Each term focuses on best practice techniques while promoting a holistic manner of care for patients. As a concept, it enhances the professional and ethical role of health practitioners. Cultural safety and patient centred care are aspects which are crucial for health professionals who strive to deliver the highest level of quality care to all patients (Nguyen, 2008). This essay will analyse and demonstrate that cultural safety is patient centred care by using examples from practice. Through this it will discuss professional standards, science, health policies and health models.

Cultural competence in nursing is imperative for effective patient care. A nurse must know his or her own values and beliefs as well as knowing about a patient cultural practices in relation to healthcare. Cultural competence is defined by some as: “the learned, shared and transmitted values, beliefs, norms and lifeways of a particular group that guides their thinking, decisions and actions.” Also it is noted that an important change to this definition is “the recognition of the dynamic,

By making sure all your practices as a nurse are culturally safe, you will know that you are treating every patient that comes under your care with the respect and standard of care that they require as an individual with their own beliefs. As a nurse, you need to be open minded and open to accepting cultures that may be different to you own so you do not compromise the care of the health consumer, and therefore affect the therapeutic relationship you need to have with the patient to care for them effectively. This is an essential skill that all nurses need to use in every practice they take part

Practicing cultural safety requires nurses to have undertaken personal reflection of their own cultural identity. This enables them to recognise the impact that their personal culture has on their professional practice (Cox & Taua, 2013). This personal reflection should allow the nurse to provide effective care to an individual or family from a different culture (Cox & Taua, 2013). In this essay I will reflect upon two of my own cultural groupings, discuss the concept of “other”, the relevance of cultural safety to nursing practice and how I might care for someone who is culturally different from myself.

Critically analyse one of the main challenges, barriers, and enablers for cultural competence in health care when working in a cross-cultural environment.

The main ideas that Lisa Bourque Bearskin is stating in this article is that nurses need to be more sensitive to cultural care. They need to be aware of the issues in healthcare and strive to remove any barriers for certain groups, such as the first nations, and they need to disrupt any unequal relations in the social, political and historical aspect of healthcare. The way this can be done is by shifting their thoughts from cultural competence to cultural safety by way of relational ethics. Cultural competence is explained as the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that nurses need to use to care for cultural differences. Another framework described cultural competence as going through the stages of cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounter, and cultural desire. Cultural competency works very well when making policies in an agency but this view fosters a view of culture that does not encourage nurses to ask questions. (Bearskin, 2011) Cultural Competence causes different cultures to be put in a box, which cannot be done because cultures are constantly changing and every person’s culture is different. Culture is individual. Lisa Bourque Bearskin goes on to say that cultural safety is what nurses should use for ethical practice. In cultural safety, a nurse must strive to improve health care and its access for all people, while recognizing that there are many different cultures that have a right to be recognized. Bourque

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

In order to deliver nursing care to different cultures, nurses are expected to understand and provide culturally competent health care to diverse individuals. Culturally competent care is tailored to the specific needs of each client, while incorporating the individual’s beliefs and values (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006, p. 90). By being culturally competent, nurses are able to help improve health outcomes by using cultural knowledge and specific skills in selecting interventions that are specific to each client (Stanhope & Lancaster). Therefore, nurses “should perform a cultural assessment on every client with whom they interact with” (Stanhope &

Cultural safety is a concept that is integral to providing best care to patients in nursing practice. The CRNBC defines cultural safety as a process requiring RNs to reflect on their cultural identity, and develop their practice in a way that allows them to affirm the culture of their patients; cultural unsafety can be defined as any actions which demean, diminish, or disempower the cultural identity and well-being of people; this also addresses the dynamics of the power relationship between the Health Care Provider and the patient (p17). Although an environment of cultural safety is a standard that we are held to as nurses, this ideal is not always reached. In this paper I will discuss one such incidence, as well as some of the changes that will assist myself as a nurse, as well as others members of the healthcare team to create an environment of cultural safety.

The outcome of cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity is cultural safety (Berg, 2010). In practicing cultural safety, it is not really expected that health care workers will know all cultures; it is acknowledging and respecting people regardless of their differences and beliefs (Hughes & Farrow, 2006). Moreover, nurses and other health professionals create cultural safe practice when the patients feel safe, respected and understood (Skellet, 2012), as well as if there is a shared understanding and acknowledgement of the unique identity and diversity. Health workers should always consider the cultural and historical background of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, because practicing cultural safety is significant to

With regard to adapting care to the cultural context of a Native American patient, two theoretical nursing perspectives would be useful. The first is the meta-theory of critical theory, which is concerned with addressing and overcoming unethical power relations in the nursing situation (Oudshoorn, Ward-Griffin, & McWilliam, (2008); and under this umbrella, the second is Leininger's middle-range theory of cultural care, which is specifically concerned with surmounting cultural barriers in the nursing situation (McFarland & Eipperle, 2008). The critical theory perspective would help the nurse remain attuned to power discrepancies in her relationship with the Native American patient; this is absolutely crucial, because a Native American patient may be far more sensitive to what he perceives as acts of domination than patients from the dominant culture. Complementing this broad view, Leininger's theory provides a more specific framework which the nurse can use to assess her patient in order to make sure that she is taking a full holistic account of the patient and refraining from imputing her own cultural views onto the patient. This theory isn't predictive in nature, but it will help the nurse develop the frame of mind necessary for providing "culturally congruent care" (McFarland & Eipperle, 2008, p. 48) for the Native American patient. The middle-range theory can help the nurse bridge the simple social-cultural gap, while the meta-theory

Cultural safety wasn’t an area of focus until the late 1900’s, according to the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health. Cultural safety focuses on building an environment where health care professionals respect all cultures, beliefs and practice. Cultural safety’s focus is that no one will be treated unfairly or discriminated against because of their identity of who they are and what culture they come from. We as potential workers in the health care system need to understand the concept of cultural safety and be aware of cultural differences that we will face. Living in a country with such ethnic diversity, nurses of Canada need to understand the matter of cultural safety, so patients feel they are accepted no matter their cultural

Cultural safety is patient centred-care. This statement is debated within the following essay. Discussed are definitions of cultural safety and patient-centred care. Cultural safety is debated, alongside how policies, models of health, quality issues and health informatics impact on health care. Science and learning needs are articulated within the debate professional issues analysed. Finally, a conclusive opinion is made to complete the debate.

The attitudes and actions of these nurses have potentially created barriers to the delivery of culturally safe care to the man and the other patients in the ward. Cultural safety, in nursing, is defined, by the Nursing Council of New Zealand [NCNZ], (2011) as the effective nursing practice of a person or family, from another culture, that is determined by that person or family. Culture may include, but is not limited to: Age, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ethnicity, religion or spiritual beliefs, and disability. Cultural safety was initially based on the Treaty of