Introduction:
Healthcare professionals work in the community and members of the community have diverse cultures. There are practices that are acceptable in different cultures and those that are not. It is important for a healthcare professional to be aware of the cultural factors of healthcare professionals so that they can remain respectful of the consumer’s culture as they provide their services. Furthermore, according to Lie, Lee-Rey, Gomez, Bereknyei & Braddock (2011) it helps improve patient outcomes. Description of the relevance and relationship between culture/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and cultural competence:
Cultural competence is the awareness that a person possesses about different cultures (Tseng & Streltzer, 2008). There are practices that are considered acceptable and those that are not in different cultures. The knowledge by a healthcare professional about these practices and their impact to a certain culture is very important in their work. This allows the healthcare professional to always perform their duties while respecting the culture of their clients. While the term cultural competence is often used to refer to the practices of a particular culture, it is also applicable when it comes to socioeconomic status of the clients. A healthcare provider must be aware of the socioeconomic status of the community in which they work in order to ensure that their activities remain acceptable to people in the group (Betancourt & Green, 2010). In a typical community, members of a particular culture or ethnicity are likely to fall in roughly the same socioeconomic group. Understanding the culture of the community will allow the provider to ensure that they are always in line to the expectations of the particular community in their work. The relationship between culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status means that cultural competence of a health worker is very important in their work (Betancourt & Green, 2010).Evidence of knowledge about the elements and principles of cultural competency and how they relate to your health profession
Elements of cultural competency are particular things that a person has to know and posses that allow them to interact with people of different cultures and socioeconomic classes. They are:
Awareness is the personal consciousness about ones reactions to people of different cultures. A health worker has to be aware of how they react to interactions with people of different cultures so that their reactions are not apparent and they do not appear to be prejudiced against different cultures (Rose, 2013).
Attitude towards a culture is the intrinsic beliefs held by a person towards people of a different culture or socioeconomic status. For instance, a health worker may have a negative attitude towards a certain culture but training increases their awareness so that their negative attitude does not become apparent (Rose, 2011).
Knowledge is an element that a person acquires. Knowledge will include study of different cultures in order to understand why people of these different cultures believe in what they do and why they do things a certain way. A health worker with knowledge about a different culture will improve their awareness and attitude and therefore offer better services to their clients (Rose, 2011).
Skills are an important part of cultural competence as they provide the health worker with the actual real world cultural competence skills that they use to interact with people of different cultures in order to ensure they interact in the expected way with their clients (Rose, 2013).Evidence of knowledge about institutional policy and guidelines (NHMRC dimensions) related to cultural competence in health services and how these link to your specific health profession/practice:
The institutional policy and guidelines concerning cultural competencies require the healthcare profession to be engaging to consumers and communities. These people require the services offered and therefore their input concerning how the services should be packaged o delivered is very important. The guidelines also encourage accountability. The healthcare profession is tasked with leading healthcare initiatives. The community will have an interest to know how their resources are being spent. Leadership provides direction and accountability provides the necessary information to the community (Purnell, 2012). The guidelines also require the healthcare professional to know the community and to know what works. This means that the healthcare professional must know the community, its practices and beliefs as well as its socioeconomic status. This allows the programs for the community to be tailored in order to give the best benefit to the community. The healthcare professional should also understand what is acceptable in the community so as not to come up with interventions that are doomed to fail from the beginning. Finally, the guidelines recommend forming partnerships with the community and sharing responsibilities. This gives the community a sense of ownership to the whole process and they will be more committed to it (Amerson, 2010).Evidence of knowledge about how the elements and principles of cultural competency indicated in Criteria 3 and 4 relate to health consumers:
Cultural competency is very important to health consumers. Health workers work in communities and people in these communities will have their own culture and belong to a certain socioeconomic group. A lot of the work performed by health workers requires the collaboration of the community in order to be effective. Cultural competency allows the health workers to understand the community within which they work. This understanding is very important as it allows members of the community to feel like the health workers are part of the community. This allows the members of the community to be able to collaborate with the health workers making their work more effective (Hernandez, Nesman, Mowery, Acevedo-Polakovich, & Callejas, 2015).
Using these working relationships, the members of the community can easily accept the health workers to take leadership of community matters concerning health. It is also important for the health consumers to know how resources are being spent in the community. Accountability of health workers allows this to be possible and health consumers will be more willing to take part in programs where cultural competence is exhibited. Cultural competence means that members of the community take ownership of health programs, which allows them to be more involved and more committed to the programs (Hernandez, Nesman, Mowery, Acevedo-Polakovich, & Callejas, 2015).
Ability to identify what is needed to ensure ‘culturally/socially safe’ professional practice for both the health professional and health consumer:
The healthcare professional needs to understand the culture of the community in which they are working in. Understanding a culture goes much deeper than simply knowing the practices of a particular culture. Knowing the practices of a culture is important as it allows a health worker to be able to identify a particular culture. However, apart from knowing the cultural practices, it is also important to understand why the community embraces these practices (Kirmayer, 2012). In many cases, practices are entrenched in a culture because of the community’s beliefs. If a health worker understands these beliefs, they will ensure that they respect these beliefs in their work. Understanding a culture also makes it easier for the health worker to educate the community. The health worker will understand why a community does things a certain way. With this information, they can educate them on why they need to change some practices that affect their health. Without an understanding of the culture, the health worker can take an approach that will be seen as hostile to the culture and will therefore not be readily accepted by the community. With this in mind, the health consumer will also be more willing to participate in culturally safe health programs (Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone, 2013).Ability to identify a number of ways that your health profession can ensure to provide culturally safe health services:
The health profession is a scientific profession that makes use of knowledge gained because of scientific study in order to improve the health situation of a population. However, the community’s where the profession is practiced may not always be scientifically inclined. The community may have its traditional beliefs that inform its culture. In order to ensure a culturally safe health profession, members of the health fraternity must understand the culture of the community and the beliefs that support this culture. However, there must also be guidelines that ensure that the profession does not divert from its scientific background. The community should be allowed to participate in the formulation of guidelines that guide the health profession in a community (Tseng & Streltzer, 2008). The input of the community is very important because it provides the cultural point of view during the formulation of policy and guidelines. This ensures that both sides are considered. The guidelines will take into consideration the scientific background of healthcare as well as the cultural beliefs of the community. Once such inclusive guidelines are formulated, they should be adhered to strictly to ensure a culturally safe healthcare profession in the particular community (Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone, 2013).
Conclusion:
Cultural competency is a very important aspect in healthcare. It is important for both the heath workers as well as healthcare consumers. Cultural competency allows the healthcare provided to become acceptable to the community. When it is acceptable, more members of the community will participate and the programs will be more effective.
References:
Amerson, R. (2010). The impact of service-learning on cultural competence. Nursing education perspectives, 31(1), 18-22.
Betancourt, J. R., & Green, A. R. (2010). Commentary: linking cultural competence training to improved health outcomes: perspectives from the field. Academic Medicine, 85(4), 583-585.
Dreachslin, J. L., Gilbert, M. J., & Malone, B. (2013). Diversity and cultural competence in health care: A systems approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hernandez, M., Nesman, T., Mowery, D., Acevedo-Polakovich, I. D., & Callejas, L. M. (2015). Cultural competence: A literature review and conceptual model for mental health services. Psychiatric Services.
Kirmayer, L. (2012). Rethinking cultural competence. Transcultural Psychiatry, 49(2), 149.
Lie, D. A., Lee-Rey, E., Gomez, A., Bereknyei, S., & Braddock III, C. H. (2011). Does cultural competency training of health professionals improve patient outcomes? A systematic review and proposed algorithm for future research. Journal of general internal medicine, 26(3), 317-325.
Pérez, M. A., & Luquis, R. R. (2014). Cultural competence in health education and health promotion. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass
Purnell, L. D. (2012). Transcultural health care: A culturally competent approach. New York: FA Davis.
Rose, P. R. (2011). Cultural competency for health administration and public health. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett.
Rose, P. R. (2013). Cultural competency for the health professional. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Tseng, W. S., & Streltzer, J. (2008). Cultural competence in health care. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
