Guide to culturally competent health care

Cultural competency in health care refers to healthcare workers’ and systems’ ability to respect, communicate, and engage effectively with the ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of the society around them, particularly when such cultures differ from their own. Purnell (2014) claims that community health nurses can use cultural competency practices in their practice by using a community participatory approach to health care. The following are some of the strategies:

Preservation of cultural heritage

Community health nurses can implement a cultural preservation strategy in their practice by encouraging the adoption of non-harmful cultural practices that are scientifically and procedurally sound for use in health care. According to Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone (2013), an excellent example of cultural preservation in health care is the use of the neem tree among many communities in the world who believe in the healing powers of its herbs.

Cultural accommodation

Cultural accommodation in health care means supporting cultural practices which have been proven not to be harmful. An example of such a strategy is allowing family and friends of the patient to gather around the patient and pray before the patient is taken to the theater for an operation (Purnell, 2014). It is the culture of many religious societies to do this and nurses can uphold cultural competence by preserving such a norm.

Cultural Repatterning

A nurse can adopt cultural repatterning in health care by discouraging the use of cultural practices that have been proven harmful. An ideal example of such a practice would be to discourage female genital mutilation, which is a cultural practice exercised by some communities in Africa (Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone, 2013). FGM causes various health complications, which should be a basis for discouraging the cultural practice.

Cultural Brokering

Cultural brokering involves the community health care nurses combining cultural practices and their understanding of health care practices to negotiate with the patients on the best health care plan that can improve their healing process (Tseng & Streltzer, 2008). An example of such a practice involves nurses encouraging patients to use their preferred herbs such as the Neem tree herbs in combination with other medical prescriptions.

The adoption of these cultural competency strategies can be hindered by the nurses’ lack of understanding of the cultural values, beliefs, and practices of the societies they are serving. This could further be hindered by language barriers which could limit interaction and communications with members of their area of work, therefore, making it harder for the nurses to understand the culture in question.

References

Dreachslin, J. L., Gilbert, M. J., & Malone, B. (2013). Diversity and cultural competence in health care: A systems approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Purnell, L. D. (2014). Guide to culturally competent health care.

Tseng, W.-S., & Streltzer, J. (2008). Cultural competence in health care. New York: Springer.