Miller, N. L. (1997). Childbearing health practices as described by Old Order Amish women . Michigan State University. Department of Nursing.
The article posits that the US is a nation that prides itself in wide cultural diversity. This is because culture mirrors the experiences and backgrounds of a specific cohort of individuals. As such, a unique culture in the US with an increasing population is the Old Order Amish that influences not only health beliefs but also practices of its people. Descriptively, the Old Order Amish is a religious group formed after the reformation in Europe. To this end, the community is typified by home births and large families as common practices among the people. One of the issues facing the community is that its women lack or receive little prenatal care, a phenomenon whose influencing factors are known to the health care professionals. Therefore, the central problem necessitating the study is the inherent conundrum by health care professionals in proffering culturally congruent care to this population.
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Thus, the purpose of the qualitative descriptive study was to describe the childbearing practices by the Old Order Amish women that could be utilized to proffer culturally congruent nursing care to childbearing women of the community. To this end, the results showed that the Amish women preferred home births because they perceived giving birth to be a private matter. Also, traditional professional healthcare help was only sought when there were complications during labor or pregnancy. As such, the author concludes that despite knowledge regarding childbirth being limited, faith and support reinforced childbearing health practices.
In essence, the case study elaborates the fundamentality of cultural congruence and competence in nursing practice. The information and research by the article proffer an in-depth understanding of evidence-based nursing practice that is parallel to the preferred cultural values, beliefs, and practices of patients or clients, (Marion et al., 2016). Therefore, to uphold cultural competence and congruence, I will always adhere and bend towards cultural beliefs and values of patients rather than imposing my own. Furthermore, in the case of a language barrier due to cultural differences, I will refer nurses that have cultural coherence to the patient or client in the bid to improve their health outcome.
References
Marion, L., Douglas, M., Lavin, M. A., Barr, N., Gazaway, S., Thomas, E., & Bickford, C. (2016). Implementing the new ANA standard 8: Culturally congruent practice. Online journal of issues in nursing , 22 (1). DOI: 10.3912/OJIN.Vol22No01PPT20
Miller, N. L. (1997). Childbearing health practices as described by Old Order Amish women . ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. ProQuest Central.
