Essay Culture Health Beliefs

“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

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

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

The findings of this survey showed that 73.6% agreed with the use of traditional medicines for health maintenance, 79.2% agreed for benign illness, such as colds or sprained ankles, and 90.3% agreed for palliative care (Zubek, 1994, p. 1926). Where they disagreed the most was with the use of traditional healing in the intensive care units, only 16.9% agreed with the use of this treatment for serious illness, such as cardiac or respiratory compromise, whether in the hospital (21.2% agreed) or as outpatients (26.4% agreed). Nearly half (48.6%) agreed with using traditional medicines for chronic illnesses, such as non-insulin dependent diabetes or Parkinson's disease (Zubek, 1994, p. 1926). One instance where physicians were unwilling to allow their patients to use Native medicine was while the patient is in the hospital, because the physician could be held legally responsible for any treatment administered while admitted under their care. There is also the problem of differentiating between legitimate Native healing practitioners and those who would take advantage of anyone not aware of the proper rituals and techniques that need to be performed (Zubek, 1994, p. 1929). This could be overcome by having a formalized licensing organization such as is used by Western practitioners (i.e. American Society of Clinical Pathology [ASCP]). That poses another problem though, as to whether traditionalists would be willing to have such an organization.

Health care providers need to be culturally competent and aware of the assumptions that their own culture makes in order to effectively provide health care services with cultural sensitivity. What we deem appropriate, may cause extreme discomfort for some and we often make these assumptions unknowingly. Effective and culturally appropriate communication is the first step in achieving equity of access to health care. Non-verbal cues such as hand gestures, eye contact, smiling and other mannerisms differ between cultures and often affect how successful your health care interaction will be. (Fanany, R. 2012, p.232)

It is not always easy to decide about the care of a patient, because the patient’s cultural beliefs do not always coincide with the beliefs of the nurse. Ephesians 4:2 in “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (English Standard Version). God has loved us unconditionally from the beginning of time, and has always been patient with us. It is time that humans show the love that God has for us onto others and respect one another no matter the differences. This paper will discuss the importance of respecting another person’s culture, what stigma is and whether if Lia’s family viewed her that way, brief history of the Hmong, the preventions that could have taken place, and how to incorporate

The nursing profession is known for being a caring and compassionate career path that is loving and accepting of all individuals. The traits of many of us are based on our cultural background and therefore it is important to be culturally aware of different traditions and preferences pertaining to cultures that we directly interact with. Both taking into consideration the patient’s culture and recognizing the impact of one’s own personal beliefs are competencies that a nurse should demonstrate and are listed under the first standard of practice according to the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015).

When culturally competent nurses interact with other cultures, they observe how members of the culture communicate, watching for verbal and non-verbal cues. Eye contact is important to identify. For some cultures direct eye contact is not polite. Touch for some cultures is prohibited. If needed, nurses should explain the reason for touching the patient before proceeding. In some cultures males cannot be caregivers of females. Silence doesn’t always mean miscommunication or patient apathy. For some cultures is a positive non-verbal cue or a sign of respect or agreement. Space and distance is very important when providing care. Patients can place themselves close or far from the nurse based on their culture. Healthcare beliefs also vary from cultures. Some cultures are compliant with cares while others may not be very cooperative. Based on these observations, nurses can plan their plan of care based on the patient’s needs (Maier-Lorentz, 2008 Journal Of Cultural Diversity). Nurses also need to observe pain non-verbal cues, food preferences, family arrangements and general norms and interactions.

Showing support and respect for cultural health beliefs creates a better interpersonal relationship between patient and physician. When implementing a wellness plan for the patient to follow the physician should take into consideration the beliefs of the patient. Health care providers should seek and obtain knowledge of their patient’s diverse cultures. Obtaining the knowledge of other cultures can be an valuable skill.

The United States is a diverse accumulation of cultural backgrounds which can often set the stage for feelings of confusion, anger, mistrust, and a host of other emotions when dissimilar cultures disagree. Cultural competence in nursing can help eliminate these barriers and provide a platform for nursing to follow in the quest to understand a patient's culture and background. When a nurse takes the time to learn about a given culture prior to providing care, it conveys she respects the patient's right to their beliefs, customs, and culture. It does not necessarily mean the nurse agrees with their practices but

Miscommunication, medication errors, and lack of compliance commonly occur in the healthcare field. These are just a few of the errors that occur due to the patient being from a different culture than the physician or healthcare worker. Those three errors alone have a huge impact on our healthcare today. If we could have a better understanding of other cultures that are different from our own we could have a dramatic decrease in errors and a great increase in healthcare participation. Training must be completed and must be done in more than one way. The first step is to make sure that all physicians and health care workers get the same nationwide training that focuses on improving cultural competence. How this is completed must be done in more than one way (Horwitz, 2001).

In any case, providing competent care to a patient of a different culture must first start with an understanding of the culture itself (Potter & Perry, 2011). Culture is

Gloria I agree with you. As a professional nurse, we should respect our patients. Most of the time we are getting patients from different culture. If we do not have any idea about their culture, we should ask question about their cultural practices in a professional and thoughtful manner. Always we must show respect for the patient family, friends and religious elders. If

People of the Chinese culture have many different beliefs and practices of medicine and healthcare. It is extremely important for nurses to be culturally competent and to be able to understand different practices and beliefs of different cultures to ensure that they are providing the best care and making their patients as comfortable as possible. According to Shih-Yu Lee, ritual is defined as “a social essential collective activity within a culture,” it is also well recognized that culture and ritual plays a fundamental role in “defining, sensing the health and illness, and searching help for problems” (Shih-Yu, Shu-Ling, and Yu-O, 2013). There are many rituals and beliefs of traditional Chinese medicine that are crucial to understand, the

Cultural awareness is being aware of another person’s beliefs and values (Baillie, Leslie., 2009, 3rd Ed, p13). In a healthcare setting cultural knowledge is considered to be not assuming anything about a patient’s beliefs or values. For example, in the case of Jehovah Witnesses, it is against their beliefs to receive blood products (Chaplain John Ehman, 2007), however in some cases, such as in an