Cultural Competent Care In Nursing

Cultural Competent Care In Nursing

There is a long-standing and well-documented pattern of health inequalities in the US , evident in both health care outcomes and in utilization of health services , while the gap between health needs and the provision of health services to meet them continues to widen Inequalities in health particularly affect minority ethnic groups because of , among other reasons , disproportionate poverty discrimination and failure of health service organizations to provide culturally competent care . This work explores issues pertaining to race race relations , health care equity , and the nature of

attitudes and beliefs and their relationships with human behavior . It describes prejudice and discusses its expressions and consequences . It delineates the need for rehabilitation professionals to learn more about their own prejudices and possible manifestations of these prejudices

Culture is an extremely complex concept , and one that has been defined interpreted and analyzed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives Not surprisingly , this has seen the emergence of a number of rival theories and viewpoints on what culture is , and on what its relationship to and role in human affairs is or should be . Unfortunately , it is beyond the scope of this work to discuss the concept of culture at the level and depth it warrants . Nevertheless , regardless of the competing theories on what culture is , it is clear that it (culture ) plays a fundamental and critical role in shaping people 's values , beliefs perceptions and knowledge about the world within which they live , that it influences people 's behavior and generally gives logic and meaning to a whole way of life in that world , and that it ultimately provides the 'blueprint ' for their survival in that world (Andrews Boyle 1999

There are several compelling reasons why nurses need to be informed about culture . First of all , care is central to the concept of nursing If care is to be delivered in a consistent way , it must include assisting the client and family to achieve the goals that they have set up . Goals are strikingly cultural . They vary from culture to culture because of values (for example , maximizing the family versus maximizing the individual . Furthermore , nursing argues that it delivers holistic care . However , all too often , this means using only biophysical and psychosocial data . True holism must include the sociocultural aspect as well . If nurses intend to take care of whole clients , the sociocultural domain is essential . This is particularly true of contemporary nursing in which nurses are on the person 's turf - in the household and community . Under these circumstances , to avoid the sociocultural is to truly miss the point of holistic care

The issues of working with elders and with the chronically ill are of immense importance . Fawcett (1983 ) suggests that there is an increasing number of cases in which health care workers need to work in community settings and with whole families in which the outcomes will not (cannot be the standard medical outcome of cure . It is clear that nursing outcomes will require working with (versus...