The Importance Of Culturally Sensitive Nursing Care

The United States is a nation of immigrants; they have virtually every culture of the world within its borders. Due to this reason, there must be a certain level of cultural competency within its people. A comparison and contrast will be made to compare the Hispanic cultural views on medical care to the American cultural views toward medical care. I chose to explore Hispanic culture because of my background but most importantly due to its richness of unique characteristics. I will provide an overview on how heredity, culture, and environment can influence behavior in the medical office. Furthermore, I will express my opinion about why a medical assistant,

It is well known that the United States is made up of several different cultures and the health care system delivers care to a very diverse population. However, depending on ones culture-receiving care may be a challenge at times. In this paper we are going to take a closer look at the culture of Hispanic Americans. The Hispanic population has grown to over 55 million residents with in the United States in 2015, with an estimated growth rate of 2.1% per year (Krogstad & Lopez, 2015). Making this minority group on of the fastest growing populations within the United States (DeNisco & Barker, 2016).

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

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).

Cultural competence is defined as possessing the skills and knowledge necessary to appreciate, respect, and work with individuals from different cultures. It is a concept that requires self-awareness, awareness and understanding of cultural differences, and the ability to adapt to clinical skills and practices as needed

In the preparation of writing this paper, I reviewed several educational videos from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.) that show healthcare providers interacting with patients from different cultures. I chose the video that shows a Hispanic man interacting with his surgeon. I chose this video because all counties in Ohio except one are seeing increases in the Hispanic population. There has been a nine

In the Hispanic culture health care is most commonly sought only after symptoms appear. In many cases only when those symptoms cause the individual’s incapacitation. Working through discomfort is considered the norm, dwelling on discomfort or mild pain is seen as weakness and seeking medical attention when not ill, such as preventive care, is almost unheard of.

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

The timing of prenatal care of most Mexican-origin women is relatively late compared to the pregnancies from other races and a lot of Mexican pregnancies have not received ideal medical care. The cause would be that they are encountering language barrier. In the article “Prenatal Care Experiences and

Culture is a multifaceted characters of a diverse sets of people that have a common ground on values, languages, emotions and identity. It is a symbolic communication perpetuated in a much larger society that influence by means of conditioning and imitation from one generation to the next. Knowledge of cultural diversity is crucial at all levels of nursing practice. It require nurses to be challenge on a multilevel amplitude of social character and commitment. It is empirical that the nurse consider specific cultural factors impacting on each individual patients and be able to recognize its differences. The impact of cultural diversity on each patient start with the nurse as a co-provider and influence on the perceptions, interpretations and behaviors of a particular specific cultural group. Nurses need to understand the validity of how culture minded patients understand life process, health, illness, death, and dying. Through collaboration and scientific evidence of multicultural society can bring about a culturally-relevant and responsive services.

The health care system in the U.S. is used less than its full capacity by Hispanic women, especially after recent migration to the U.S. Among recent immigrants, protective factors such as traditions, health values and behaviors are shown to guard and strengthen health. Safeguards to health deteriorate sharply as they acculturate to U.S. society ((Sanchez-Birkhead, 2010).

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).

I chose this article because I find it interesting and of great help to any nursing and health care professional; I am Hispanic myself and constantly looking for better ways to help my community. I personally see my grandmother struggling whenever she needs to see her physician, as she sometimes does not understand what him and his staff are telling her. On another note nursing is an ever changing career and the Hispanic culture is growing at an enormous rate, becoming culturally competent does not only provide the patient with good care but can make the nurses’ job easier and more rewarding. I do feel that there should be more research on this subject; the best way to learn about a patient’s cultural beliefs is to ask the patient. I think that the population that the author intended to target is health care professionals; however, I know that any immigrant can benefit from reading this article.

My southern heritage has directly influenced the person I am today. I grew up in South Louisiana and I have lived there all 25 years of my life. My childhood was not easy, but I think those tough situations prepared me for life, and taught me the value of family. I attended a private, Christian school and I am so appreciative of my parent’s sacrifices that allowed me to receive that education. I would describe myself as a kind, hardworking individual who respects, cares for, and values others. I believe these attributes are a genuine reflection of my upbringing. My Christian faith is what motivates me each day and it is also what has inspired me to help others through a career in nursing.

Prenatal care is widely accepted as an important element in improving pregnancy outcome. (Gorrie, McKinney, Murray, 1998). Prenatal care is defined as care of a pregnant woman during the time in the maternity cycle that begins with conception and ends with the onset of labor. A medical, surgical, gynecologic, obstretic, social and family history is taken (Mosby's Medical, Nursing, and Allied Health Dictionary, 1998). It is important for a pregnant woman as well as our society to know that everything that you do has an effect on your baby. Because so many women opt not to receive the benefits of prenatal care, our society sees the ramification, which include a variety of complications primarily