Culture is the most common fundamental aspect that helps in defining the personality of every individual. Cultures are founded on the environment, anthropological history, lifestyle, and philosophy of the people in the community, culture tends to vary since each society tend to have differing foundations from the others. Every nurse needs to understand the culture and personality of the people, especially the patients. In the nursing service, the profession expects the nurses to respect the cultural background of every patient. However, the nurse's job expects the nurses to maintain personal code and integrity to promote the health of the patient since it has benefits in the patient's culture and belief of the patient (Debiasi & Selleck, 2017).
A Guide to Culturally Competent Nursing Care (2020), data collected during the assessment helps the nurse in planning for a well-formulated, acceptable, and a well-cultured treatment plan. The moral ethic of every medical practitioner, mainly the nurses, since their primary responsibility is dealing patients is to ensure that patients are well-taken care. Cultural assessment is essential since it guarantees the patients the right to their cultural beliefs, values, and practices by ensuring that the patient's privacy is understood, respected, and considered while administering care to the patient. The first step in cultural assessment is learning the patient's illness through the patient's unique cultural analysis. Cultural assessment is done through drafting a series of questionnaires directed to the patient; that will help in understanding the cause of the illness (Rankin & Stallings, 2005).
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What do you think could have caused the illness?
When do you think the problem started?
How severe is the problem? Does it have a short term or a long-term effect?
What treatment do you think you should receive?
What outcomes do you expect from this treatment?
What other effect has this illness caused to you?
What do you fear may develop from this illness?
In our culture, space and distance are keys between individuals; people are expected to maintain space while communicating since people consider the area as an extension to themselves. People tend to feel comfortable with the distance between them; lack of maintaining some space between individuals is considered culturally wrong and disrespectful. Eye contact is also culturally phenomenal, and individuals should avoid eye contact. These cultural practices may function as a nurse since the profession requires maintaining eye contact with the patients. People from other cultures react to eye contact differently since some view eye contact important mode of communication while others avoid eye contact.
According to Bramhall (2014), for any nursing to establish a pleasant environment where cultural differences are respected, one should practice effective communication. When dealing with the patient, I would adopt communication skills, whether the patient is from my culture or not. I would use writing skills to assess the patient; this, too, allows the patient to express his or her opinion freely. Through writing, I will be able to understand the patient's problem and address the problem effectively if the patient came for medication alone. I would also consider engaging a family member in case of the communication barrier; the use of a family member will help me take care of the patient appropriately about cultural diversity.
The reason for adopting the writing assessment with my patient is to avoid any language barrier that might exist. The cultural difference might lead to the language barrier, and through writing, the patient will be able to express his problem to me freely. The use of a family member is to make sure that they offer the right care to the patient. The family member will help in explaining the problem so that the illness might be the precise proper treatment.
References
Bramhall, E. (2014). Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard (2014+) , 29 (14), 53.
Debiasi, L. B., & Selleck, C. S. (2017). CULTURAL COMPETENCE TRAINING FOR PRIMARY CARE NURSE PRACTITIONERS: AN INTERVENTION TO INCREASE CULTURALLY COMPETENT CARE. Journal of cultural diversity , 24 (2).
Rankin, S. H., Stallings, K. D., & London, F. (2005). Patient education in health and illness . Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
A Guide to Culturally Competent Nursing Care. (2020). Retrieved 8 April 2020, from https://online.alvernia.edu/articles/culturally-competent-nursing-care/
