The modern definition of medical practice and health care has become explicitly related to the aspects of the socio-cultural environment. Evolving from such a tendency, scholarly research is frequently focused on the correlations between the cultural peculiarities of patients and their health conditions. For example, when speaking of motherhood, it is of paramount importance to remember that females representing cultural minorities have a predisposition for postpartum depression due to lower levels of social support (Pao et al., 2019). Thus, such peculiarities may be combined under the notion of cultural competence, which stands for the ability to acknowledge various cultures and secure appropriate communication within them. Competence can be demonstrated in terms of cultural sensitivity, skill, proficiency, and dynamicity (Sharifi et al., 2019). However, when trying to take into account cultural competence, nurses frequently struggle with the ways of understanding profoundly the cultural identity of a patient. Hence, in order to resolve the issue, nurses should:
- Ask the patient directly. There is a common belief that asking a person about his or her religion is considered highly inappropriate, whereas the truth is that many people appreciate the nurses’ effort to help (“Seven steps to become a more culturally sensitive nurse,” 2019). When asking direct questions, nurses are capable of eliminating any preconceived feelings and assumptions in terms of one’s ethnic affiliation, focusing on the objective data instead.
- Raise cultural awareness. When working in a particular area, nurses should carefully examine the area’s demographics in order to become aware of the diversity scopes. Having obtained enough information, nurses would no longer need to ask many direct questions concerning one’s culture and thus, avoid unpleasant situations.
Having taken the aforementioned aspects into consideration, it may be concluded that nurses nowadays cannot ignore the concept of culture as a major contributor to the patterns of public health. For this reason, they are to promote cultural sensitivity in the workplace and increase their own awareness in terms of cultural peculiarities and their effect on health. Proper attention to the patient’s cultural affiliation results in both better communication and treatment outcomes.
References
Pao, C., Guintivano, J., Santos, H., & Meltzer-Brody, S. (2019). Postpartum depression and social support in a racially and ethnically diverse population of women. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 22(1), 105-114.
Seven steps to become a more culturally sensitive nurse. (2019). Every Nurse. Web.
Sharifi, N., Adib-Hajbaghery, M., & Najafi, M. (2019). Cultural competence in nursing: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 99.