Running head: PERSONAL HERITAGE ASSESSMENT AND ITS USEFULNESS
Personal heritage assessment and its usefulness
April 15, 2012
Personal heritage assessment and its usefulness
INTRODUCTION: In this paper, the writer will focus on the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of person as a whole, three different family’s opinions on health maintenance, health protection and health restoration. Also this paper will identify health traditions as regards to cultural heritage of the writer, then how the three families interviewed in this paper follow their customs and how important their traditions and practices are to them.
Heritage can be described as the degree of which one’s lifestyle reflects his/her
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Jarvis (2011) Culturally sensitive: With the full knowledge of heritage assessment of a whole person, nurses who the caregivers will be able to develop some constructive attitudes towards the diverse cultural populations found in the setting in which they are practicing. Culturally appropriate: With background knowledge of the patient using heritage assessment tool, the nurse will apply knowledge thereby providing a given person with the best quality health care. Culturally competent: The nurse use this body of knowledge to attend to the total context of the patient’s situation, bearing in mind patient’s immigration status, stress factors, other social factors, and cultural similarities and differences The demographic profile of the United States which is more of immigrant, it is necessary that nurses must develop a body of knowledge in order to meet this challenge of caring for people from diverse cultural, religious and ethnic background. The writer of this paper saw the need to establish knowledge of her own personal heritage not only to help her develop the skills for performing heritage assessments for others(patient) but also to help have the Cultural Competency to know yourself. The saying that “Charity begins at home” applies here.
Going by the assessment tool, the writer was born in Nigeria, grew up in Nigeria and her childhood development occurred in the country of origin She migrated to United States as an adult. The grandparents and her
“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
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,
The Heritage Assessment Tool can be adopted as a dependable tool to gauge, health maintenance, restoration and safeguard of personal, cultural beliefs. The adoption of health assessment tool helps meet the prerequisites of diverse patient populations to offer quality all-inclusive care. The following paper reviews the assessment of three culturally dissimilar families, and demonstrate how a nurse would continue with health promotion centred on the variances in health traditions between the three cultures. The three cultures include Hispanic culture, Native American Indian culture and White American culture. The objectives of this essay are
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
Cultural Competence is important for many reasons. First, it can help develop culturally sensitive practices which can in turn help reduce barriers that affect treatment in health care settings. Second, it can help build understanding, which is critical in competence, in order wards knowing whom the person
Adapting to different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for others view points. Cultural competence means to really listen to the patient, to find out and learn about the patient's beliefs of health and illness. To provide culturally appropriate care we need to know and to understand culturally influenced health behaviors. However, becoming culturally competent is a much more daunting task. Culture (and ethnicity) often influences a patient’s perceptions of health and illness. Therefore, if healthcare providers appear insensitive to cultural diversity, their actions may negatively affect the quality of the healthcare that they provide.
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.
A heritage assessment in nursing is a vital tool to learning about a patient. By finding out about the patient’s family and friends we can learn about their support system. If we learn how close to a culture our patient is this will give us an idea of how true they hold their beliefs or if they have went mainstream with the American culture. Doing interviews with different cultures gives us a look into their personal beliefs and can help nurses to provide better care and teaching to these patients. Some patients we will learn were born in
The United States has become a multicultural country. Everywhere you look, you see a plethora of cultures that range from Hispanic and African to Asian and American Indian. The varied traditions and beliefs of a multicultural country impact how nurses implement patient-centered care. The best way to provide optimal care in nursing is to become better informed in how different cultures view health maintenance, protection, and restoration. The Heritage Assessment is a wonderful tool to obtain information that can be used
Cultural competency is extremely indispensable in nursing practice so that nurses can provide optimal care for patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore, insufficient knowledge and skills of cultural competency has continued to increase racial and ethnic inequalities in healthcare services especially for minority groups (Dunagan et al. 2013; Long, 2012). As Nurses interact with clients they provide care, education and advocacy at any point in need. Cultural awareness provides the bases for nurses to develop of interest to continue and advance in knowledge and skills to deliver cultural competent care (Calvillo, 2009). To complete the critical analysis of the integrative review on cultural competency in new nursing graduates,
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
Culture is a pattern of behavior and values shared by an ethnic group. Cultural heritage is a set of traditions within the culture that is hand down from the older generation to the younger generation within the family. These traditions influence the family’s decisions in relation to their diet, education, daily living activities, religious beliefs and practices and also health and illness beliefs. In this paper, the author will focus on the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of a person as a whole. Three different cultures including authors will be discussed about the health maintenance, health promotion, and health restoration. The author will also evaluate health traditions which
Heritage is as individual as a fingerprint when it comes to some cultures. Every individual has their own heritage, and this is very different between different cultures. Heritage consists of determination of one’s ethnic, religious, and cultural background (Spector, 2009). When we look at someone’s heritage, we look at traditional health methods used to maintain health, protect health, and restore health; these concepts deal with a person’s physical, mental, and spiritual beliefs. This paper will compare these health methods among the Chinese, Hispanic, and Navajo heritages and look at the
Nowadays, nurses not only need to know how to care of their patients, but they also must be able to care of patients from other cultures with many beliefs and values. Cultural views of individual influence the patient’s perception and decision of health and health care (Creasia & Parker, 2007). In order to care for people across different languages and cultures, nurses need to develop cultural sensitivity, knowledge, and skills.