Being culturally competent is essential in caring for the lives of others. As a nurse you will be caring for individuals and families who may or may not have the same beliefs and values and yourself. Despite the differences the nurse must be able to ask the appropriate questions, seek out tools that are going to help the client and family understand the importance of their care, and feel comfortable when giving care to others whose values and beliefs are different.…
Dying is part of the normal process of living, but that isn’t to say that dealing with death is an easy feat. Thus, it is important for nurses to understand their patients’ cultural background in order to provide culturally competent and compassionate care at the end of life. Culturally competent medical care for the dying patient by nurses and healthcare providers alike is a challenging task, especially when religious values, practices, and beliefs influence the treatment decisions for patients as the end of life nears. The purpose of this paper is to discover cultural practices among the Jewish community at the end of life.…
Culture has been defined as "the shared values, traditions, norms, customs, arts, history, folklore, and institutions of a group of people." Understanding culture helps us to understand how others interpret their environment. The first step is for the nurse to become aware of her own cultural self-awareness. After this the community nurse educator needs to be aware of how to approach a minority group. An interpreter should be used to ensure that the health promotion is understood by all. The nurse needs to find out about the patients customs, beliefs, values and any self-care practices.…
This 2011-2012 study was conducted to determine if cultural competence training would be a positive influence a pediatric health care provider’s understanding and treatment of culturally diverse patients. 69 participants were chosen from the Nemours Children’s Health System, from a variety of departments including both inpatient and outpatient physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and other health care workers. The participants were required to take a pre-training self assessment, a two-part cultural competence training program, and a post-training self assessment one year later. The training program consisted of an internet-based module followed by group discussion. According to the post-training self assessment surveys, participants…
To be culturally competent the nurse needs to understand his/her own world views and those of the patient, while avoiding stereotyping and misapplication of scientific knowledge. Cultural competence is obtaining cultural information and then applying that knowledge. This cultural awareness allows you to see the entire picture and improves the quality of care and health outcomes.…
The nursing profession continues to walk towards excellence in cultural competent delivery of current healthcare needs. In the pursuit of excellence and the love of learning, there are always improvements to be made. Continuing education requirements are the backbone of building nurses into life long learners. Identifying personal areas of growth are an effective mode of continuing to add to existing nursing skills. In this paper, I will identify areas of improvement that I would like to make in my cultural competency skills. I have self identified these areas through completing a tool called the Ccultural Ccompetence Sstudent Sself-rating Aassessment. By utilizing this self-assessment tool, I will target weaknesses in my cultural competence skill set and create a plan to increase my proficiency in those targeted areas. Good introduction.…
The field of nursing is complex with a considerable amount of knowledge needed to provide quality of care for patients. With that in mind, understanding each individual can contribute to optimal care. In any hospital, a variety of patients from many different cultures are admitted. These patients have beliefs, morals, and practices that affect care and can contribute to the well-being of the patient. Learning about cultures can be accomplished though research, peers and discussing with the patient. Certain procedures and interventions could be contraindicated with beliefs and practices preventing proper healing. By taking the patients culture into consideration, the nurse can have better success with teaching, achieving trust from the patient and implementing proper care for adequate healing.…
To be a successful nurse one must have knowledge of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. It is important to provide culturally competent nursing care. A nurse must know what the patient beliefs are and how their certain beliefs relate to health care. This will effect the patient 's decisions on the way he or she chooses to be taken care of.…
Your post is well detailed and very educating. Competency in nursing is the key to providing quality care to patients. That being said, nurses and other health care providers are expected to be educated quite often on cultural competency so as to better understand the patients in order to achieve a better patient satisfaction. Thanks for sharing.…
In order to deliver nursing care to different cultures, nurses are expected to understand and provide culturally competent health care to diverse individuals. Nurses must find out about people’s traditions, ways of life, and beliefs about health care so that the appropriate interventions can be planned and implemented to produce culturally positive health outcomes (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006). By being aware of the client’s cultural beliefs and knowing about other cultures, “nurses may be less judgmental, more accepting of cultural differences, and less likely to engage in the behaviors that inhibit cultural competence” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006, p. 84).…
Thank you for feedback regarding the importance of therapeutic communication in delivering care. While conducting research, I stumbled upon an interesting website entitled Think Cultural Health designed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS); Office of Minority Health. The website contains a wealth of knowledge, promoting cultural competency in healthcare. One interesting feature is an e-learning program entitled Culturally Competent Nursing Care: A Cornerstone of Caring, which was created to provide health care professionals with the skills necessary to deliver cultural and linguistically competent care (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). This e-learning course is a great resource for anyone looking…
As nurses, we not only need to understand cultural competence, but we also have to be sure not to generalize groups of people. Each client is an individual, and it is important to form a therapeutic relationship so we can care for each specific client. Each client has his/her own needs; just because two people are of the same culture, it doesn’t mean that he/she believes in the same thing. In turn, nurses need to understand their own culture and beliefs before caring for a person of a different culture or beliefs. In our research, we chose four peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles found though the Lambton College data base (CINAHL). We began with a search of cultural competency and then narrowed the search down through specific cultures which are within the Sarnia Lambton area.…
Cultural competence is to honour and respect the different cultures within our society. It is to understand and acknowledge the differences of the families within our centre and community.…
There are many areas of focus in nursing. This paper will focus on transcultural nursing including the review of a graduate student’s personal culture and how to incorporate cultural actions into nursing practice. The Giger and Davidhizar Transcultural model will be discussed and applied to the graduate student. Transcultural nursing has been defined as a humanistic and scientific area of formal study and practice in nursing which is focused upon differences and similarities among cultures with respect to human care, health, and illness based upon the people's cultural values, beliefs, and practices, and to use this knowledge to provide cultural specific or culturally congruent nursing care to people (Leininger, 1991). The U.S. Bureau of the Census (2010) for the Houston, Texas population showed over 25 different ancestry cultures, demonstrating the need for culturally sensitive and culturally competent nursing care. A culturally competent nurse needs to understand his/her own world views and those of the patient, while avoiding stereotyping and misapplication of scientific knowledge. Cultural competence is obtaining cultural information and then applying that knowledge as reviewed from the online article from K. Fernandez and Fernandez in 2012. Also the culturally sensitive nurse communicates in a way that reflects sensitivity and appreciation for the diversity of another. It is conveyed when words, phrases, categorizations, etc. are intentionally avoided, especially when referring to any individual who may interpret them as impolite or offensive (Giger et al., 2007).…
Throughout the world there are many cultures that vary in customs, beliefs, languages and ideals. In order to provide the highest level of care it is important that those in the nursing profession are culturally competent. A key component in becoming culturally competent is self-awareness of one’s own culture. This paper contains a reflection of my own culture and will outline my family values, beliefs and traditions, my personal identity and values, and my diversity attitudes.…