Concept of cultural competence nursing
Changing demographics in most nations require that nurses offer culturally competent care. Due to diverse populations, medical professionals have started to address the essence of creating a way to promote cultural competence in different healthcare situations. Primarily, cultural competence involves creating an appreciation of a person’s existence, consciousness, notions, and situation without permitting it to have an inappropriate effect on people from different backgrounds. Additionally, cultural competence demonstrates understanding and comprehension of the patient’s culture, embracing and accepting cultural diversity, and personalizing care based on the patient’s culture (Flowers, 2004). Public health nurses should pay attention to the needs of the population where they practice. Cultural competence care is specifically vital for critical care nurses since they operate in acuity and stressful healthcare settings. Lack of this care can increase stress for critically ill clients and lead to inadequate care offered by medical professionals.
Components of cultural competence
Campinha & Munoz (2001), proposed a five-element model that is appropriate for creating cultural competence nursing care including cultural awareness, cultural skills, cultural knowledge, cultural encounters and cultural desires. Cultural awareness entails self-evaluation and comprehensive analysis of an individual’s professional and cultural background. This component should start with the nurse learning about their background. Ideally, understanding the culture of another person is not an assurance the nurse will practice cultural competence care (Catalano, 2015). Cultural knowledge is the second element of developing cultural competence nursing. This component comprises of searching and gathering comprehensive details on various cultural and ethnic societies. A nurse can enhance and increase their cultural awareness by getting information provided in different sources such as journals, workshops, textbooks, Internet and interaction with people from diverse ethnic groups. When a community-based nurse is handling a family, they require solid knowledge base on the family theory, group dynamics, and cultural diversity. A direct interaction between the nurse, family, and the patient is suitable to ensure quality care is provided (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, 2012).
Further, cultural skill is the capacity of the nurses to gather appropriate cultural information concerning the patient’s presenting issue and properly conduct a culturally accurate physical assessment. Fourth, a cultural encounter is the means that prompts a nurse to openly participate in cross-racial interaction with the patients from culturally different backgrounds. Engaging with the client openly assists the nurse to enhance their cultural knowledge. Importantly, creating cultural competence is a constant process that progresses through the entire nursing career and is impossible to master. Lastly, cultural desires involve the enthusiasm of nurses to be culturally enlightened and to solicit cultural encounters. Cultural desires express the eagerness to open to other individuals, to embrace and respect their culture.
Further, nurses should carefully explain terminologies to clients without making assumptions. Some medical professionals might assume that the client understands some terms such as Medicare or Medicaid. A patient originating from a different country might be confused and assume these terms are forms of illnesses. Thus, the nurse should be sure their patients are responding to questions that they fully understand based on their cultural difference.
Possible pitfalls in culturally competence nursing
Accidentally stereotyping clients of a certain culture or ethnic groups based on traits like physical appearance, race, the nation of origin or religious affiliation is a common drawback to creating cultural competence (Flowers, 2004). Nurses should learn to avoid this mistake if they desire to offer cultural competence nursing care. Ideally, stereotyping is forming an opinion of people without evidence or getting the chance to know them. It is advisable for nurses to be informed that several subcultures might exist within a given ethnic group. For instance, the Asian American consists of cultures like Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese. These cultures might have several subcultures due to their environments such as religious beliefs, language, education level, and family structures. Medical professionals ought to be keen when labeling clients. A good example is referring to a citizen of US as an American rather than a US citizen (Flowers, 2004). This description is justified by the fact that community health nurses practice in the community with a critical focus on individuals, families and specific groups within the community. Additionally, the community health nurses offer direct care to subpopulations within the community. The nurses come into direct contact with the members of the community which stresses the need to have knowledge of subcultures.
A nurse should avoid judging a patient’s beliefs and values about health. Further, the nurse requires and understanding of cultural beliefs and practices to identify the specific needs of the client. A criticism of the patient’s cultural practices and beliefs or questioning their efficacy might create a huge barrier to nursing care. For instance, a nurse visits a Korean mother who has just delivered and finds the spouse pressing various areas of the patient's hand to relieve a headache. In this case, the nurse should seek more information on the procedure instead of criticizing the practice (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, 2012). Developing cultural competence Nursing helps nurses to evade these pitfalls when offering care to patients from diverse cultures.
References
Campinha, J., & Munoz, C. (2001). A guiding framework for delivering culturally competent services in case management. The Case Manager, 12(2), 48-52.
Catalano, J. T. (2015). Nursing now!: Today’s issues, Tomorrows trends. Philadelphia, PA, United States: F.A. Davis Company.
Flowers, D. L. (2004). Culturally competent nursing care a challenge for the 21st century. Critical Care Nurse, 24(4), 48-52.
Potter, P. A., Perry, A. G., Stockert, P., & Hall, A. (2012). Fundamentals of nursing: Concepts, process and practice: Checklists (8th ed.). Philadelphia, PA, United States: Elsevier Health Sciences.
