African American Cultural Analysis in Healthcare Essay

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The selected culture for this assignment is the African American culture that is also referred to as the black culture. African American culture incorporates various cultural traditions of the African culture as well as American cultural aspects (Holloway, 2005). This essay seeks to discuss the African American culture with an emphasis on assessment, diagnosis, and planning of nursing care for culturally diverse individuals in the selected cases.

Culture Identification

According to African American culture, family is the basic unit of the structure and hierarchy of a community (Holloway, 2005). This is because African Americans value the community as much as they value these families just like in typical African societies. Their nuclear families are headed by men since the older generation is responsible for taking care of the young ones across the community. The attitudes and beliefs of African Americans about pregnancy and childbearing reflect their value for children and large families.

In terms of death, their attitudes and beliefs are consistent with the mainstream American culture. However, they take death incidents as unifying factors. Before and after death, they unite the bereaved by calling their entire extended family and the related community to take part in the occasions. African Americans have positive attitudes and beliefs about health which make them adopt health-conscious cuisine and healthy methods of preparing food. They also undertake preventative health to avoid chronic illnesses and avoid hospitalization at all costs. Moreover, African Americans prevent mental health despite being affected by narcotics that are common in society.

African Americans have diverse dietary practices and cuisine that are influenced by their agricultural practices. According to Holloway (2005), this explains why the practice of growing crops such as yams, rice and peanuts in America is traced to African American families. This is an aspect of their culture arising from their slavery experience in American agricultural fields (Holloway, 2005). This is because the African American culture and general spatial relationships have been influenced by their slavery history that dates over four hundred years ago.

In African American communities, taking care of the elderly is the responsibility of all members of society. Moreover, their strong belief in family unity influences them to take care of the elderly at home instead of taking them to public rehabilitation centers (Hecht, 2003). African Americans have conscious eating habits because of their disciplined nutritional and social practices. In terms of communication patterns, they have unique verbal communication and slang that is different from the mainstream American language accent coupled with nonverbal language cues.

Application to Nursing Process

Individualizing the assessment of the extended family living with an 81-year-old grandmother will involve an understanding of the family preference. It is the African American preference to take care of the aged at home especially in cases where she is suffering from cerebral Vascular Accidents and severe hemiparesis. Therefore, diagnosis and planning will be done in consistency with the expectations of the family and their healthy eating habits.

For the new immigrant couple, individualizing them will involve keen consideration of the fact that they have no extended family to take care of them. The diagnosis that their first child was born prematurely at 28 weeks presents a challenge in making them accept the situation since African Americans adore pregnancy and childbirth.

For the nuclear family, individualizing the case will invoke their commitment to healthy options and dietary practices. This should not be a challenge to African Americans who have a healthy culture. Parents will be motivated to live and take care of their teenage children in line with their family and communal responsibility.

References

Hecht, M., Ronald L., Sidney A (2003). African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture? Routledge.

Holloway J (2005). Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.

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