Cultural background of a patient

A patient’s cultural background and its impact on conduct

A patient’s cultural background has a substantial impact on his or her conduct. A patient’s culture influences their attitude toward medical care as well as their capacity to deal, understand, and manage an illness, diagnosis, and the outcomes of medical treatment. Family members and patients bring with them certain values and ideas about illness and health, as well as expectations about the amount of health care that can be provided and specific opinions about the sort of therapy and medication. Medical personnel must be aware of and respect their patients’ cultural preferences and values. Failure to do so may bring out a professional as indifferent, insensitive or even incompetent. Nurses and other professionals can avoid stereotypes through a clear understanding of the culture of the patient and show respect for their beliefs. This can be achieved through self-assessment and constant improvement of personal, cultural competency. During the provision of health care services, certain areas affect the nursing care of people from diverse cultures and only through learning can nursing care for such people be improved and necessary changes made to give culturally competent care.

Areas That May Affect Nursing Care

One of the areas that would affect the nursing care of S.K is communication. Communication is an essential component in nursing especially while dealing with people from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. For S.K, she comes from Cuba a country where the official language is Spanish whereas she now lives in the United States where the official language of communication is English. Consequently, S.K may have problems communicating in English or may have a different accent and speak a different English dialect (Nichols, Horner & Fyfe, 2015). Due to the perceived notion by some people in the community that a person who uses a different accent has limited English skills or has reduced intellectual capacity, such people may not seek nursing care promptly for the fear that the health care providers will treat them the same way as they would a person who speaks the same English dialect. Further, a person from Cuba has very different ways of communicating with people from the United States. For instance, they have different interpretations for the use of gestures, eye contact, some English words, turn taking during a conversation, asking and responding to questions, and understanding of interpersonal space among others. All these cultural aspects have a great influence on communication (Nichols, Horner & Fyfe, 2015). Further, the opinions, perspectives, and beliefs of a person influence the terms they use and the perception of nonverbal messages. For instance, since S.K is from a different culture, she may view eye contact and touch from nurses as invasive and hostile, which may make her not seek nursing care in the future or may take the actions of the nurses negatively (Alpers, & Hanssen, 2014). Hence, she may not take the medication and treatment given to her positively and may end up not following the prescription or not taking the medication at all.

In this case, certain accommodations are required for the nurses to provide proper nursing care to the patient such as S.K. hence nurses have to integrate the beliefs and perspectives of their patients into the planning process of the patient care, its implementation, and evaluation. To ensure effective communication, they should pay attention to the body language of the patient including the tone, voice, and loudness. They should also organize their thought processes well and frequently repeat as well as summarize the information regularly to make sure the patient understands and to keep them at ease (Alpers, & Hanssen, 2014). Another accommodation that can be implemented is the use of professional interpreters to ease communication challenges between the patient and the care provider, which will ensure efficient services (Nichols, Horner & Fyfe, 2015).

Another area that would affect the nursing care of the person I interviewed in relation to culture is the decision making. In Cuban culture, family ties are respected, and family members have a significant say in the decision relating to serious issues such as the health of a person. For instance, S.K may fail to take certain tests or refuse full disclosure of her prognosis and disease and prefer that her family be told instead for them to take up the burden and make decisions. Similarly, religious beliefs may play a part in the treatment of a person since some Cubans still seek spiritual aid to cure illnesses and traditional methods of healing (Mazanec & Panke, 2015). Hence, a patient may fail to take medication due to such reasons. The accommodation required in this case is self-evaluation of the care provider; understand biases that may exist in their own culture, which will help them resolve cultural conflicts. Further, the care provider should respect the beliefs of the patient, accept their decision, and render appropriate care to those patients from diverse cultures.

Data collection and gathering information about an illness is another area that would affect nursing care. In some cultures, there is a high value for health promotion, wellness, and general health, while in others, there is not. In others, there is the belief that information about illnesses and one’s condition should not be shared with people outside the family (Nichols, Horner & Fyfe, 2015). In such instances, the individuals are reluctant to visit hospitals and to give the necessary information about their illness. In rural Cuba where S.K comes from, most of these aspects are present. Therefore, when giving information about her health, she might tend to withhold some information due to cultural beliefs that will have adverse effects on the type of nursing care she receives. The accommodations that can be applied here are health care providers practicing their professional responsibility and explaining to the patient why their health is critical while remaining sensitive to the cultural background of the patient. Further, they should aim at facilitating more holistic plans and assessments of care based on the culture of the patient and remain open-minded to ways of gathering information without making the patient feel as though their cultural beliefs are being violated.

Environmental variations can also affect the nursing care of the interviewee. Different communities possess a wide range of beliefs concerning the relationship between man and the environment. S.K comes from a country where people are fatalistic about health nature and feel they have no control over these things (Mazanec & Panke, 2015). Hence, she may require teaching on the effects of medication on her health. An accommodation that can help solve this situation is the provision of information to such patients in a nonjudgmental way while at the same time being respectful of their fatalistic beliefs.

How the Cultural Competency Has Changed

After the learning, my cultural competency has changed to a great extent. First, I have come to accept the fact that the use of a foreign accent or limited English skills is not a reduced intellectual capability. I have also come to view culture as dynamic and not static for both the patient and care providers, and hence we should view our clients from different perspectives (Alpers, & Hanssen, 2014). Further, I have come to understand that there is a need to respect nontraditional family structures such as same-gender parents and recognize family members as part of the decision-makers in issues relating to nursing care provided. Overall, the learning has helped improve my perspectives towards other people’s beliefs, values, and practices.

How Learning Can Be Used To Positively Affect Nursing Care

The concepts learned can be used to strengthen and deepen the commitment of nurses to nursing care and also reinforce their insight into the profession, which will assist in offering holistic care that meets the needs of each patient. Secondly, the concepts learned can be used to equip nurses with the necessary knowledge relating to other cultures that, in turn, can assist them in identifying certain cultural patterns that aid in the formulation of a care plan that meets the healthcare goals of each patient (Almutairi, McCarthy & Gardner, 2015). In addition, it can help promote nursing care since nurses become more sensitive to the needs of their clients from diverse cultural backgrounds in the increasingly complex society.

Conclusion

Nurses and other healthcare providers have the responsibility of understanding the role of cultural beliefs, perspectives, and values in the health of patients. The cultural background does not only have an influence on the health of the patient but also affects the type of nursing care a patient receives. Hence, the nurse has the duty of understanding how and why the culture of a patient is important to the health of the patient and hence provides nursing care that is holistic and sensitive to the unique needs of each individual.

References

Almutairi, A. F., McCarthy, A., & Gardner, G. E. (2015). Understanding cultural competence in a multicultural nursing workforce: registered nurses’ experience in Saudi Arabia. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 26(1), 16-23.

Alpers, L. M., & Hanssen, I. (2014). Caring for ethnic minority patients: A mixed method study of nurses’ self-assessment of cultural competency. Nurse education today, 34(6), 999-1004.

Mazanec, P., & Panke, J. T. (2015). Cultural considerations in palliative care. Spiritual, Religious, and Cultural Aspects of Care, 4.

Nichols, P., Horner, B., & Fyfe, K. (2015). Understanding and improving communication processes in an increasingly multicultural aged care workforce. Journal of aging studies, 32, 23-31.