Heritage

“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

The Heritage Assessment Tool is a series of 29 questions designed to determine a patient’s ethnic, cultural, and religious background. The tool gives nurses an understanding of the patient’s traditional health and illness beliefs and practices so that culturally appropriate interventions can be initiated (Flowers, D.L., 2005). The following paper summarizes the assessment results of three culturally different families, and uses those results to show how the nurse would proceed

These religious and spiritual influences play a major role in the Hispanics health, illness and daily life. In much a similar manner, the Native American Indian family adopts the cultural beliefs to associate with illness and health. They believe that a person’s state of exists when he or she exists in harmony with nature and sickness occurs when an imbalance between the natural or supernatural forces and the sick individual exists (Askim-Lovseth & Aldana, 2010). Traditional health believes and practices involving healing ceremonies and rituals restore balance when illness happens. “These can be conducted by their traditional medicine men or women, who are thought to have compelling powers, the ability to read minds, and know-how in concocting medicine, drugs and poisons.” For the white young family, the cultural belief of invincibility and youth are the driving force behind health prevention (Askim-Lovseth & Aldana, 2010). “Focus on the temporary is regularised, while thinking about health is assigned to an adult person where family accountabilities pertain.” Protecting against illness or disease does not feature into their daily lives. Disease or illness is something that is insubstantial and distant, and unimaginable to their young, resilient bodies and thus irrelevant (Edelman & Mandle, 2010).

Not only family, but spiritualism is used for health promotion by prayer for the ill and dying (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). Hot and cold imbalances, magic, spiritual discipline, disturbance of internal organs, and mental and emotional problems are thought to be the cause of sickness and bad health (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). The theory of hot and cold directs Latinos to choose applicable treatment (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014). To demonstrate, warm liquids are used for an individual with a cold, and child liquids are used for an individual with a fever (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014).

It is know that the patient’s community or cultural group can have significant impact on a person’s health. Therefore, health care practitioners are faced with more challenges that include outside sources and they need to be willing to change their treatments to address the other sources.

America is melting pot; there are an enormous variety of cultures and ethnicities represented in our general population. This population diversity is also reflected in healthcare participants. With the diverse amount of backgrounds, there also becomes a need for transcultural health care and acknowledging that not every culture views

In the United States today cultural diversity is growing more prevalent every day. The report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM: Unequal treatment, 2002) presented information that racial and ethnic minorities of all ages receive lower quality health care compared to their non-minority counterparts. Every effort should be made to stop the disparities surrounding cultural differences while attempting to understand the cultural health behaviors, increase cultural

In comparison of the Canadian and Hispanic cultural health traditions to those of the American author, mild variances exist. As the other families, the author uses good eating habits and exercise to maintain health. She practices yoga and prioritizes time spent ridding her body and mind of stress. The author protects her health by receiving immunizations such as the seasonal influenza vaccine. She avoids substances known to be toxic to the body like cigarette smoke. She encourages her family to practice good health habits and teaches them about maintaining, protecting, and restoring health. The author has Hispanic heritage but does not practice as many traditions as S. M. and her family. The author trusts in western healthcare similar in the ways that R. R. and his family do. Residing in American culture has possibly influenced all three families in which they have adopted some alternative traditions.

The world is filled with many cultures and it is important for healthcare professionals to understand most of them, therefore understand their patient. The heritage assessment includes the many factors that may influence a patient’s medical decision such as their religious beliefs and cultural background (Spector, 2009). The heritage assessment is very useful in understanding a patient’s preferred health approach to maintain, protect and restore it. Knowing cultural beliefs and values are very significant because in many cases, they are important to the patient and the beliefs and values influence their health choices. By

Cultural diversity in the medical field is, at times, greatly hindered because of religious beliefs, language barriers, and the hierarchies of diverse cultures and these have the propensity to affect the continuity of care for the patients. “Every person has different aspects that constitute their identities, according to how they see themselves….This means that seeing an individual in terms of

Comparing the three interviews, it is apparent that all three cultures could require a different healthcare approach. It is interesting to see the family dynamics, and pasts all play a role in their healthcare decision-making and thoughts. Being aware that each family dynamic is unique it is important to avoid stereotypes, and get

Culturally competent cares in the medical field can make a huge difference in the satisfaction and the healing of patients who are guests in the facilities that we will be at. In central Minnesota we have the privilege of having many different cultures in a small area. With many people immigrating here from their homeland it is important, as health care professionals, to have an understanding of the many different beliefs and traditions that we may come across in our personal and professional lives.

The United States of America is a global village, a melting pot of various different ethnic and cultural beliefs. We are a land of many colors, traditions, and histories. With this diversity comes many challenges. As a healthcare provider this creates some challenges when working and caring for individuals who may not have the same skin color, language, health practices beliefs and values as our own (Pearson, E., 2011).

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.