Understanding and Applying the Heritage Assessment tool

“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

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 term culture is defined as “the thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups” (Potter & Perry, 2013). With the increase of culturally diverse populations in the United States, it is important for nurses to practice cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability to acquire specific behaviors, skills, attitudes, and policies in a system that permits “effective work in a cross-cultural setting” (OMH, 2013). Being culturally competent is essential because nurses who acknowledges and respects a patient’s health beliefs and practices are more likely to have positive health outcomes (OMH, 2012). Every culture has certain views and attitudes concerning

For nurses, to provide culturally competent care, a nurse must first acknowledge the different cultures, and understand his or her own culture, and how he or she relates to each culture. As the population continues to increase, and demand for cultures to be respected, nurses, need to continually educated themselves on cultural differences, beliefs, and practices, and constantly beware of any self bias or prejudice.

In order to deliver nursing care to different cultures, nurses are expected to understand and provide culturally competent health care to diverse individuals. Culturally competent care is tailored to the specific needs of each client, while incorporating the individual’s beliefs and values (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006, p. 90). By being culturally competent, nurses are able to help improve health outcomes by using cultural knowledge and specific skills in selecting interventions that are specific to each client (Stanhope & Lancaster). Therefore, nurses “should perform a cultural assessment on every client with whom they interact with” (Stanhope &

Nurses have the responsibility of caring for a diverse group of people. These people come from different cultures, races, and religious backgrounds. Religion plays a major role in patient care and has for many years. Cultural competency is a major component of nursing practices. Understanding culture is imperative in knowing what is important to a patient and how to address his or her healthcare needs. Understanding culture is also important when determining what suggestions to make about interventions for treatment. Culture is defined as many people interacting and sharing with one another their patterns of behavior, beliefs and values (Burkhardt, G. & Nathaniel, A., 2014).

The Heritage Assessment tool is primarily used as a device to evaluate health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration of a person’s cultural beliefs and values (Spector, 2006). This assessment helps aid in providing quality patient care in that it helps to meet and respect the needs of different types of people and their respective backgrounds (Spector, 2002). This particular paper serves to compare and contrast the ethnicities of Indian, Caucasian, and Arabic families using health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration as evaluation markers. The purpose was to identify and isolate different groups of

The tool is instrumental in increasing the knowledge of the culturally based health beliefs and practices. Through utilization of the tool, the nurse is well acquainted with the culture that guarantees self-growth experience and to administer good care for the patients exhibiting a wide range of cultures. Courtesy of the tool, the health professional will learn and understand the individualized views of the patient on health as well as their practices along with the perception of nursing health (Purnell, 2012). Cultural ties have a strong impact on the manner in which a person thinks and receives the medical care, including such aspects as preventive measures in health care, standard health promotion messages, continuing care, and therapeutic services among others. Considering the cultural uniqueness of a patient can assist a nurse in creating a positive and nurturing, patient-nurse relationship that can successfully share between the patient and the nurse, and will thus boost better healthcare. The Health Assessment Tool-assisted to identify the differences and similarities between the three families. Various components affect health maintenance among different households. They include foods that are consumed on a daily basis, religious practices, relationship with extended families, the country of origin, ethnic background, among other factors. Health protection would, therefore, include practicing superstitions and folk

Heritage assessment tool in nursing is an essential component in the field of medicine and health. All individuals living in a community have their heritage which is different from culture. The traditional health assessment deal with people’s spiritual, mental and physical beliefs. People from different background have different beliefs on death, illness, health and diseases. In most community health is a complete balance between an individual’s mind, body, spirit. Heritage assessment will help the nurses and other healthcare providers to provide proper treatment plan, the patients understanding about the disease, their beliefs and practices and to be considered and respected when providing culturally competent care. Heritage assessment tool provides an excellent tool to evaluate the beliefs and lifestyle of an individual and thereby helping healthcare providers to understand a person in entirety. Traditional and cultural health methods are used in health maintenance, health protection and health restoration. Health maintenance can be preventing a disease and promote health. Health protection is a tool used to give an explanation of how individuals maintain their health on a daily routine. Health restoration is the act of restoring an individual’s health to its maximum level. This paper is about Three different families been assessed on various aspect of the cultural belief which includes authors own (Asian Indian), Hispanic and Asian Chinese. It is going to focus on the

The Hispanic culture has very unique beliefs and traditions related to healthcare. Health protection is based on the belief a person’s health is a “gift from God” (Galarraga, 2007). Traditional Hispanic belief is that health is a reward for good behavior, and disease is a punishment for doing wrong (Galarraga, 2007). By being an upstanding member of the community, Hispanic individuals believe that their health is protected. In Hispanic cultures, health maintenance is maintained by practicing “personalismo” (Garcia, 2006). Personalismo is described as a very personal relationship and interaction with an individual’s healthcare provider (Garcia, 2006). Often in the Hispanic community, health care providers make house calls and play vital roles in a person’s life (Garcia, 2006). Health restoration among the Hispanic culture is very different from most others. Many Hispanics believe in healing by “curanderos” or “santeros” (Galarraga,

An individual has their own ethnic, religious and cultural background and they share the thoughts among families or the same ethnic background and take over the tradition and culture from generation to generation. Looking at someone’s heritage, it includes traditional health methods how a particular ethnic background people to maintain health, protect health and restore health. I would like to discuss about health traditions; health maintenance, health protection and health restoration among with three different culture; Philippine, Hispanic and Japanese.

The first discussion is on the Asian East Indian heritage. The majority of Indians continue to practice and maintain customs, traditions, and values acquired in India prior to immigrating to the US. Indians are very family oriented and have strong ties with relatives and extended families. The elderly are taken care of by the son in the family. This is not only a responsibility but also demonstrates respect for the older. Indians believe that the actual wealth lies in the individual’s optimal health, and there is a very close relationship between body, mind, and soul. Indians are religious and practice their religion with honor. Indians tend to respect the authority of health care providers and feel their own role is passive. They have high tolerance to pain. Clients and families expect the provider to be confident in proposing treatment plan. If variety of choices of treatment is offered, the provider may be considered to be incompetent. Indian clients prefer to have same sex health care providers to take

The author of the paper is a 29 years old female who was born and raised in Nepal. The author immediate family structure consists of mother, father, two sisters, and one brother. The author 's birthplace is Mugling, a small town which is located in the district of Chitwan, Nepal. The author identifies the primary language spoken is Nepali and Hindi. The primary religion practiced is Hindu. In Hindu religion, health is defined as a balance between biological, psychological, and spiritual energy. Individuals believe illness occurs due to witchcraft, black magic, ghost and evil spirit.

The nursing profession has played a big role in caring for the patients in the health sector. Additionally, it has helped save lives of very many people in the world. Cultural beliefs, on the other hand, have played a role in the hindering of nursing practice. However, delivery of quality health is a right to every citizen of every state or country. Additionally, there are some cultural practices that highly oppose the health delivery among people of some communities. All the cultures have health beliefs that help the community members in ascertaining the cause, method of treatment and healing. This paper discusses the cultural beliefs and practices that hinder health delivery in the health sector.

The world is evolving in many different ways especially in the healthcare industries. Every healthcare facility has adopted many ways to help their patients and teach their healthcare providers to care; how to provide the most optimum care they can give to help, heal, and improve for others. Patient centeredness has been introduced many years ago, and it entails that every patient is entitled to his or her specific plan of care, which will accept all of the patient’s values and views of any healthcare provider. Culture has been some of the obstacles that a nurse, doctor, or any healthcare provider may go through when providing care to a patient, because of the possible boundaries and barriers the patient might have. This is why it is important to make sure that the patient feels safe with anyone that would provide care. It is to make sure that everyone can help improve that certain patient’s life, whether it is a physical therapist, nursing assistant, or a family member, in the most efficient way that the patient can handle. Understanding a patient’s culture and their background is important because it allows for the patient’s values and concerns to be acknowledge. Being able to create a care plan that focuses on the patient is vital to understand how to readily improve an illness.