Cultural Sensitivity and Competency in Nursing
The health care is a diverse undertaking that as requires the nurses and health care practitioners have a high degree of competency and be culturally sensitive. Cultural aspects like lifestyle, beliefs, religion, age, taboos, and the general life of people is important in the nursing practice. Cultural sensitivity entails knowing the diverse nature of a people’s culture and adequately preparing in order to accept and adapt to them. In nursing, it is important to be flexible. Many aspects including culture will change yet a nurse is expected to perform at the best level. Communication is one of the parts that health care providers must capitalize on in order to learn more about patients’ cultures (Jeffreys & Dogan, 2013). This paper analyzes the importance of cultural sensitivity and competency in nursing and health care provision with the view of uncovering how this improves the quality of health care.
Cultural sensitivity helps the nurses in effective and careful communication with patients. The communication courtesy and avenues differ across cultural orientation and it is very easy to offend a person from a different culture when one did not intend so. Some cultures include beliefs about gays and lesbianism (Kemppainen et al, 2012). A nurse or health care provider must be aware of the beliefs in order to deal with the issue properly and communicate to the different groups with little or unexpected barriers. Cultural sensitivity helps a health care provider to know the roles of marriage in different cultures. Treatment of couples can be some of the greatest challenges for the health care providers. Some cultural setups have the family definition that requires the couple to witness the treatment of their partners hence the health care provider may need to allow the couple witnesses his work.
Cultural sensitivity enables the health care providers to have knowledge of people’s beliefs to avoid conflicts. Religious barriers offer the single greatest challenging in health care provision in many societies. Many societies have religious orientations that limit the use of some scientific applications like family planning and termination of pregnancy (Jeffreys & Dogan, 2013). In fact, in some cultures, a simple mention of termination of pregnancy cannot be tolerated as it may be considered impurity in the community. Essentially, cultural sensitivity will help the health care providers to understand other religious and cultural beliefs, respect the other people’s orientations, and act within the bounds of their beliefs. Furthermore, health professionals should engage the community to establish mutual understanding of how the treatment or health care service can easily be offered without making it sound disrespectful.
Cultural sensitivity and competence helps the nurses and health care providers to deal with the beliefs about gender roles effectively in treatment and health care provision. This is majorly a challenge for the health care providers working on the ground in extreme cases like war and adversity (Holland & Hogg, 2010). Most people fail to accept the fact that treatment is about the life of the sick and failing to be culturally sensitive can result to serious conflicts. The gender roles can create conflict if not well handled. Cultural competence and sensitivity help the health care providers to understand roles expected of women and men alike in order not to offend the people in the course of his duty.
Beliefs about insurance in different societies differ. Some people believe it is culturally wrong to have medical insurance covers and their strong religious beliefs are hard to influence. Lack of knowledge about such a belief may make the work of a health care provider particularly hard in case he starts by explaining to such a person the importance of a health cover. In some situations, the patients will refuse to be treated because of the worry of controversy characterizing insurance. A health care provider must know the perceptions of people about insurance before bringing it up in a discussion with individuals from another culture. Such knowledge is only possible if the health care provider understands the culture of the people (Holland & Hogg, 2010). Cultural beliefs can go as far as dictating which health care provider attends to a particular patient. A health care provider must have a high level of competency to understand that in some cultures, only men can attend to fellow men and vice versa.
Concisely, cultural understanding competence, and sensitivity is vital in nursing and general health care provision. Cultural competence refers to the understanding and ability to interpret and understands the values, beliefs, and practices in a particular culture. Many cultures have different beliefs especially in areas like communication, circumcision, gender roles, family, and birth rituals. In order to work well in such communities, a health care provider must understand the cultural orientation of the people and be able to know how to interact with the people. Communication and mutual understanding between the people as they undertake the health care provision activities is imperative as it helps in making the treatment easier.
References
Holland, K., & Hogg, C. C. (2010). Cultural Awareness in Nursing and Health Care : An Introductory Text. London: Hodder Arnold.
Jeffreys, M. R., & Dogan, E. (2013). Evaluating Cultural Competence in the Clinical Practicum. Nursing Education Perspectives, 34(2), 88-94.
Kemppainen, J., Kim-Godwin, Y., Mechling, B., Kanematsu, Y., & Kikuchi, K. (2012). Promoting cultural awareness in nursing education through international videoconferences
