From ethnicity, gender, race, and age to spiritual beliefs, language, social class and physical and mental capabilities, the depth as well as breadth of the distinctions that prevail among individuals in the present world are many. Whereas failures for addressing and acknowledging the distinctions might divide individuals, cultural competency’s role is the opposite. Cultural competency plays the role of closing the existing gaps, fostering improved communication, and consequently uniting persons irrespective of the differences that prevail among them (Dreachslin, Gilbert, & Malone, 2012) . While cultural competency might appear as a nicety, awareness concerning diversity might emerge as lifesaving in the event of the healthcare environment. From low literacy to language hindrances to differing conceptions pertaining to treatment and medicine, cultural differences might emerge as more than just an inconvenience. Even when it comes to situations that do not threaten life, skills in cultural competency are vital. In the meanwhile, training in diversity has the capacity of safeguarding the wellbeing of patient and healthcare professionals from preventable severe outcomes (Jongen, McCalman, Bainbridge, & Clifford, 2017) . The paper discusses the issues revolving around the cultural competency aspect in healthcare and the ideal means of addressing them.
Issues Surrounding Cultural Competency
In the present world, which is growing increasingly globalized, a growing number of healthcare professionals from diverse parts world are interacting with individuals from foreign nations and distinct cultural backgrounds frequently. The trend has risen in the recent years. While it has presented healthcare professionals with an astonishing opening for numerous cross-cultural exchanges, the absence of cultural proficiency in the healthcare sector might result to severe repercussions and absence of ideal communication with patients from diverse cultures (Perez & Luquis, 2019) . Whereas the issues that prevail due to cultural competency’s absence in the healthcare sector are diverse, some of them are more pressing mostly because healthcare staff encounter them on a daily basis while dealing with multicultural patients.
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A major issue that emerges when dealing with multicultural patients relates to absence of diagnostic understanding. Various reasons prevail as to why patients are incapable of comprehending the diagnosis that healthcare staff offer them. The reason considered as the most obvious entails the prevalence of language barrier ( Levitt, 2010) . Nonetheless, the issue is becoming less frequent since clinics and hospitals are commencing to comprehend the requirement for employing cultural competence in their operations while at the same time hiring multilingual staff. An additional force influencing diagnostic comprehension revolves around the patient’s level of education (Waugh, Szafran, Triscott, & Parent, 2015) . Patients that are incapable of acquiring sufficient education while in their home cultures or nations experience most of disadvantages when physicians try explaining diagnosis to them.
Additionally, cultural competency issues emerge when patients fail to abide to the home care instructions. The failure to understand diagnosis among patients progresses when patients are sent home with instructions for self-care. They might lack full comprehension of the instructions that the healthcare staff offered them or perceive self-care as not a priority. Here, the absence of cultural competency within the healthcare setting might result to deadly repercussions in the event of failure to administer medications properly (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019) . These issues also emerge due to failure to schedule follow-up appointments in line with not adhering to proper protocols.
Moreover, differing foundational beliefs result to cultural competency problems. Often, the diagnosis that the healthcare staff offers contradicts with the patients cultural or religious beliefs. For instance, a patient might regard epileptic condition with the gods’ taking over their body. Whereas this might seem as an intense case, these serve as some of the major issues that healthcare staffs experience with multicultural patients. For these kinds of cases, major concerns when diagnosing a child. The parents of the child might deploy any probable approach to sack the ‘ancestral gods’ from the body of the child while failing follow the medical directives that the healthcare staff issue (Dreachslin, Gilbert, & Malone, 2012) . These practices end up putting the life of the child at an increased risk.
Addressing Cultural Competency Issues
Since the society is growing increasingly diverse, improved communication skills and cultural knowledge can assist healthcare employees to boost level of satisfaction and comfort among patients. Numerous individuals, especially within the U.S. comprise of minority groups, creating a need for having effective ways of delivering effective care to multicultural patients. Here, one of the ideal ways in which nurses can deal with the multicultural issue resources around doing research on different cultures. Researching cultures through movies, books, trainings, readings, and talking with individuals offers a basis for understanding cultural topics, including relations, gender, nonverbal cues, customs, health views, religious beliefs, and dietary restrictions among other areas. In this manner, it becomes possible to understand the patients’ needs (Jongen, McCalman, Bainbridge, & Clifford, 2017) . It is also crucial to understand that various cultures have subcultures, which facilitates in avoiding generalizing certain populations, hence offer the needed care.
Accounting for the sociocultural health aspects is also crucial to addressing cultural competency issue. Health professionals should emphasize on understanding the cultural and social forces that influence the health of individuals and incorporate the factors when delivering care where probable. These forces might comprise of the thinking of the individuals concerning health issues, their habits, and behaviors, economic factors and others (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019) . When healthcare professionals understand their patients’ cultures, they are capable of deploying a culturally competent regime of care. For example, taking into consideration the food that a certain culture consumes might encourage a patient to follow with the provided prescriptions ( Levitt, 2010) . Additionally, certain patients might not afford the medication or access similar care levels in hospitals (Perez & Luquis, 2019) . In this vein, it becomes essential to educate patients together with their families on ways of caring for themselves appropriately.
Ensuring understanding also plays a critical role in dealing with cultural competency challenges. For instance, when determining whether a patient has knowledge of the English language, it is essential to avoid jumping into conclusions. Healthcare professionals need to understand that persons usually result to their major language when in distress. They might speak English but refrain from using the language in the presence of their families ( Levitt, 2010) . In this vein, it is crucial to refrain from assuming language, but to ask patients before resulting to any assumptions (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019) . A simple means of making sure that patients understand is requiring them to repeat after the care provider while ensuring that it is not easy to understand or translate certain terminologies, especially when it comes to figures of speech.
In addition, healthcare professionals should seek ways of connecting with their patients. Establishing trust with the patients is vital to the work of the professionals, although challenges might prevail in the event of language barrier. When dealing with translator, temptations might arise to speak or look at the interpreter directly. However, the ideal approach entails looking at the patient when speaking as opposed to the translator in order to perform gestures, such as nodding or even touching on knee or shoulder if acceptable to the culture (Jongen, McCalman, Bainbridge, & Clifford, 2017) . This serves as a means of letting the patients to know that the care professionals are connected to them directly while the interpreter just makes sure that the patient and the provider understand each other.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the various issues related to cultural competence, especially compliance and treatment might pose challenges when it comes to ascertaining them. These issues hinder effective communication, which then affect treatment’s success. Healthcare professionals are not capable of predicting certain cultural barriers with confidence in all situation. In this sense, cultural competence serves as significantly important when it comes to identifying misperceptions that might hinder effective treatment. Cultural competency makes it possible to understand the reasons as to why certain healthcare experts perceive culture of certain patients as a hindrance to effective care. Identifying the issues influencing cultural competency when dealing with multicultural patients facilitates in offering adequate treatment.
References
Dreachslin, J. L., Gilbert, M. J., & Malone, B. (2012). Diversity and cultural competence in health care: a systems approach. Hobken: John Wiley & Sons.
Jongen, C., McCalman, J., Bainbridge, R., & Clifford, A. (2017). Cultural competence in health: a review of the evidence. New York: Springer.
Levitt, R. (2010). Cultural competence: A lifelong journey to cultural proficiency. Thorofare, NJ : Slack Incorporated.
Perez, M. A., & Luquis, R. R. (2019). Cultural competence in health education and health promotion. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Purnell, L. D., & Fenkl, E. (2019). Guide to culturally competent health care. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company.
Waugh, E., Szafran, O., Triscott, J. A., & Parent, R. (2015). Cultural competency skills for health professionals: a workbook for caring across cultures. Edmonton: Brush Education.
