The Davidhizar And Giger Transcultural Model

Make an effort to avoid nonverbal responses, such as nods or headshakes. Remember that body language, like outstretched arms or facial expressions, may be un-seeable.

“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

Theories of transcultural nursing with established clinical approaches to clients were founded in the mid-1960s and are an essential aspect of healthcare today. The ever-increasing multicultural population in the United States poses a significant challenge to nurses providing individualized and holistic care to their patients. Accurate assessments identify factors that define transcultural nursing and analyze methods to promote culturally competent nursing care.” (Maier-Lorentz, 2008)

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.

It is very important to be able to recognise what a persons body language is saying especially as a Health and Social care practitioner as incorrect interpretation of communication can lead to miscommunication.

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

The Giger and Davidhizar cultural assessment in 1988 in response to there being only a few cultural assessment tools and increased amount of nursing students providing care to more diverse patients (Sagar, 2012, p. 57). The model has six cultural phenomena: biological variations, environmental control, time, social orientation, space, and communication. These phenomena are the basis of the model and help guide nurses through important cultural considerations.

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

As I had approached to Peter at the nurses’ bay, I had relaxed my posture and sat down at a lower angle and had my arms and legs uncrossed, hoping to feel less intimidating. When I had introduced myself, I had made full eye contact and greeted him with a hand shake. This clearly fulfills the acronym SURETY, a process of reading body language. This consists of – sitting at an angle, uncrossing arms and legs, relaxing, eye contact, touch, and your intuition (Stickley, T. 2011).

The development of the Giger and Davidhizar Transcultural Assessment Model (GDTAM) came about because of nursing students’ need to provide culturally diverse care for patients. The model acknowledges that each culture is individually unique and assesses them according to six phenomena: communication, space, social organization, time, environmental control, and biological variations. In this model “nurses must use transcultural nursing knowledge as a skill and an art to provide care to diverse populations in a culturally appropriate and competent manner” (Sagar, 2012, p. 57). It goes on to discuss how the model sees cultural competence as “a dynamic process implemented by an individual or health care agency by using significant interventions based on the client’s ‘cultural

Throughout this paper I will be pulling information from the Giger and Davidhizar Transcultural Assessment Model. It is pertinent for health care workers to be familiar with this model because of the growing affects that culture has on a patient’s view of disease prevention and health restoration. This model focuses on six cultural phenomena: communication, time, space, social organization, environmental control, and biological variations. It is important for nurses to utilize this tool while performing assessments on patients because of the substantial effects that each one has on a patient’s perspective. Every person is unique and knowing that no one perspective is universal will aid the nurse in treating each patient with culturally competent care.

Madeleine Leininger’s cultural care theory is one of the most influential modern day theories in nursing. Leininger describes her theory as one that is cultural sensitive that is tailored to address patients of different cultures, backgrounds, or origins. Leininger develops the cultural care theory due to the fact that she believes that nurses are caring for their patients as a one hat fits all, and not taking into consideration the patient 's background or their culture.

Non-verbal communication is used to give us cues about what is being communicated (Underman and Boggs, 2011) and involves listening, eye contact, body language, facial expressions and movements. Posture can be open or closed reflecting a person’s emotions and attitudes (skillsyouneed, 2014). Listening can create trust, act as an advocate and build a therapeutic rapport with the patient. Barriers to listening are a noisy environment, tone of voice, timing and tiredness. Kinesics (body language) is an important non-verbal skill that involves the conscious or unconscious body positioning or actions of the communicator (Underman and Boggs, 2011). Following the SOLER guideline is useful. S- Sit squarely to the person (face them). O- Maintain an open position, L- Lean slightly forward, E- Maintain comfortable eye contact and R- Relax and take your time (Egan, 2002).

The Transcultural Assessment Model, developed by Giger and Davidhizar (2006), focuses on assessment and intervention from a transcultural nursing perspective. In this model, the person is seen as a unique cultural being influenced by culture, ethnicity, and

It is important to recognize that body language may vary between individuals, and between different cultures and nationalities. It is therefore essential to verify and confirm the signals that you are reading, by questioning the individual and getting to know the person. Recognising and responding to body