Culturally Diverse Cultural Patients

“Health is influenced by culture and beliefs” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). In order for the nurse to properly care for the patient, she must know and understand the patient’s culture. “Cultural care is a comprehensive model that includes the assessment of a client’s cultural needs, beliefs, and health care practices” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). It is not enough to just know where the patient lives or where he came from. The nurse must embrace the concept of cultural competence and cultural awareness. This requires not only the awareness of the cultural beliefs and values of their patients, but also

The nursing profession has a long history of assessing and placing patient needs first when giving care. The tenets of nursing practice include meeting those needs using individualized care by collaborating with the patient, family, and health care team members. (American Nurses Association, 2010). The concept of transcultural nursing aligns with these tenets because it calls on nurses to provide patient-centered care by taking into account the patient’s background, beliefs, culture and values. In this paper, I will identify the factors that made it necessary to develop the transcultural nursing theory, describe the meaning of diversity and its relationship to the field of nursing, and explain three ways that I provide culturally sensitive care to my patients.

Leininger (1988) defined nursing as a transcultural phenomenon requiring knowledge of different cultures to provide care that is congruent with the clients’ life ways, social structure, and environmental context. This definition from the founder of transcultural care would support applying a cultural sensitive nursing care in the clinical setting, and highly linked to her definition of transcultural nursing as a legitimate and formal area of study focused on culturally based care beliefs, values, and practices to help cultures or subcultures maintain or regain their health (wellbeing) and face disabilities or death in culturally congruent and beneficial caring ways (Leininger, 1970, 1978, 1995). Moreover Leininger summarized the process of applying transcultural care as providing care that fits with cultural beliefs and life ways. From a professional perspective, it refers to the use of emic (local cultural knowledge and life ways) in meaningful and tailored ways that fit with etic (largely professional outsiders’ knowledge), in other words care should be individualized according to patient’s culture to promote holistic and effective nursing care.

Health in all cultures is an important aspect of life. A person’s cultural background, religion and/or beliefs, greatly influences a person’s health and their response to medical care (Spector, 2004). These diverse cultures guide decisions made in daily life; what food eaten, living arrangements made, medications taken and medical advice listened to. A nurse must be knowledgeable and respectful of these diverse cultures and understand their importance when providing care. This understanding helps to build a strong nurse/patient relationship, increasing patient compliance, which ensures positive outcomes are met. Patients who are satisfied

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,

Both articles express how important it is to be culturally self-aware and in touch with your personal beliefs, views, and morals. If you aren’t aware of what your cultural beliefs are you won’t be able to provide you patients with the cultural care and respect that they require in their recovery to become healthy again. In addition, the two articles (Newson 2009, Byrson 2012) both talk about how important it is to be open minded with people who may have a different opinions and views on certain things. If you aren’t open to treating you patients in the cultural way that they want to be treated, your patient will feel disrespected and unimportant. Therefore, their health will suffer because of your incompetence to accommodate their cultural needs. A nurse needs to be culturally self-aware, they need to know what their own personal views are first so they can understand that not everyone’s views will be the same. This means they need to be capable of being open and accepting to other people’s cultural wants and needs. By being these two things you will be able to provide people of all cultures with the respect and treatment they

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

To be a successful culturally competent nurse, nurses should assume attitudes to promote transcultural care. Nurses need to be aware of their patient’s cultural differences - taking time to understand and value patient’s cultural needs and perspectives. Nurses should show respect and concern for patients. Nurses should also be empathic with their patients.

Cultural aspects of holistic assessment is relevant in the provision of nursing care as it provides the care team with an overview of cultural needs of the patient as well as providing information in which the patients’ health problems have arisen. Culture is defined as values, beliefs, artifacts, behaviors, attitudes and customs influencing and regulating interactions between members of a social group (Stein-Parbury 2010: 91; Johnstone 2006: 67). It is the nurses responsibility to adhere to the ANMC, competency 2.3, ‘accepts individuals/groups to whom care is provided regardless of race, culture, religion, age, gender, sexual preference, physical or mental state’ (ANMC 2006, p. 4). Kozier & Erb (2012: 360) discuss that cultural sensitivity, appropriateness, competency and safety are all factors that are required to be taken into consideration so that the patient can be provided with the best possible health care. Kozier & Erb (2012: 360) also explain that conflicts in health care have been apparent due to cultural misunderstandings. An example of a cultural misunderstanding is the level of pain. In some cultures, it is normal to dramatically express ones level of pain whereas in other cultures people do

Our community is composed of culturally diverse people, and nurses have to take care of these people when they need care. That being said, nurses deal with conflicts of culture, values, or beliefs with their patients. The values conflict I have encountered was when the wife of my dying resident verbalized to no suctioning despite the comfort care orders she agreed and signed. Her husband had increased in secretions and despite the medications administered and oral care provided, his increased in secretions had not ceased causing blockage to his airways thereby making him gasp for air and in pain. His wife believed that suctioning causes pain and offers no benefits. According to Blais and Hayes (2011), I have to “show respect for the client’s support people” (p. 390) although the wife’s belief is not congruent with the

Cultural competence in nursing involves the application of skills, knowledge, personal attributes, and attitudes required by practitioners to maintain a respectful relationship with patients, co-workers, and other clients. Markedly, the essential components of competent cultural care in nursing includes cultural skill, cultural awareness, cultural encounter, cultural knowledge, and cultural desire. Cultural awareness involves an in-depth self-examination of one’s professional and cultural background whereas cultural knowledge includes gathering information of various ethnic and cultural groups. The ability of a nurse to acquire cultural data of a patient and perform a specific assessment of it is known as cultural skill. A cultural encounter is a process where nurses are involved in cross-cultural relations with patients from varying cultural backgrounds. The motivation to engage in cultural encounters and become culturally aware is referred to as cultural desire (Huber, 2009).

Culture competence is a quality that any nurse should have. The article that I decided to research refers to the impact that language and different cultures have on a patient’s health. It is the duty of health care professionals to attempt to learn about different cultures and to be sensitive to the way patient’s feel about their beliefs. Once the nurse understands a patient’s

A nurse’s ability to recognize different cultures and apply transcultural theory will aid in meeting the health needs of different cultural groups

Madeleine Leininger was born July 13, 1925 in Sutton, Nebraska. She is known for developing the Transcultural Nursing Theory also known as the “Culture Care Theory”.. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Human Sciences and Doctor of Science. She was also a Registered Nurse and Certified Transcultural Nurse. Although Leininger developed transcultural nursing theory in 1950’s, it wasn’t published until four decades later in Leininger’s Culture Care Diversity and Universality (Petiprin, 2014). Leininger recognized that there was an absence of cultural care knowledge while providing patient care. Therefore, purpose of Transcultural Nursing Theory is to help nurses take in consideration the patient’s culture and cultural background when determining how to care for the patient (Petiprin, 2014). It also helps nurses to become more understanding and respectful when it comes to diversity in culture and strengthen nurse-patient relationship. Madeleine Leininger’s Transcultural theory is now incorporated into nursing education to help improve health outcomes by knowing who our patients are as a whole. By doing this we see patients as a whole, and not just viewing them simply a set of symptoms or an illness (Petiprin, 2014). Nurses can integrate patient’s cultural background with the steps of the nursing process,

Transcultural nursing seeks to provide care that acknowledges an individual’s culture, values beliefs and practices. Nurses need to deliver culturally appropriate, and culturally sensitive care, a standard that is sometimes difficult due to the cultural and ethnic diversity within our society. Australia is a multicultural society. The 2011 Census revealed that almost a quarter of the population were born overseas, and 43.1 per cent of people have at least one overseas-born parent. The ever-increasing multicultural population in Australia poses a significant challenge to nurses providing individualised and holistic care to their patients. This requires nurses to recognise and appreciate cultural differences in healthcare values, beliefs, and customs. Nurses must acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in cultural competency. Culturally competent nursing care helps to ensure patient satisfaction and positive outcomes. This essay will outline and define the term transcultural nursing, discuss its history and relevance in modern nursing practice. focusing the attention for its use in a Australian context.