How cultural Diversity Affects Nursing/Patient Education

Summar of the Article 

Patient education is fundamental in influencing patients' behaviors and helps in transforming the attitude, knowledge, and skills required to maintain proper health. Cultural barrier is amongst societal factors that impact nursing/patient education. Culture is defined as the characteristics patterns of beliefs, attitudes, behavior, and values of a society (Lasa-Blandon et al., 2019). Nurses who offer education to patients from increasingly diverse cultural groups experience a challenge to efficient care. For instance, a patient's beliefs and behaviors can impact his/her perception of locus of control, communication norms, and prioritization needs. Besides, the culturally bound values, preferences, and beliefs that a patient have may influence the way he/she interprets the education message. 

The cultural issue may also cause communication breakdown, leading to unnecessary errors, poor quality care, and excess pain. Insufficient knowledge of patient's culture, difficulty in comprehending cultural competency, and culture shock are among factors that may hinder proper patient education. The cultural issue also may compromise healthcare quality, including adherence to information about the disease and treatment regimes. 

Reasons for Choosing the Article 

I chose the articles because despite illustrating the challenges of cultural diversity, it also provides information on how to overcome the problem. It strengthens the need to address cultural issues to solve communication barriers and reduce medical errors. The article illustrates the importance of intercultural training, especially for nurses with different cultural backgrounds. Providing cultural competency training leads to successful therapeutic education, elimination of drug complications, adherence to treatment advice, and access to quality medication. Subsequently, the article can improve the quality of nursing/patient education because it provides solutions to other factors such as insufficient staffing, nurses' experiences, and the complexity of patient conditions that affect education provision. 

Reference

Lasa-Blandon, M., Stasi, K., Hehir, A., & Fischer-Cartilidge, E. (2019). Patient education issues and strategies associated with immunotherapy. In Seminars in oncology nursing . 35(5). WB Saunders. https://doi.org/10.1016//j.soncn.2019.08.012