Introduction
The provision of high-quality health care services to ethnic minorities is a challenging task for medical facilities. Therefore, they use specific models and frameworks to assess the needs and problems of population groups for the specified objective. One of them is Purnell Model for Culturally Competent Health Care, and it is focused on the diversity of people, the similarities and differences in culture, and interventions based on these principles (Purnell, 2019). Its selection for the purposes of the analysis of the category of patients under consideration, Korean Americans, is conditional upon the inclusion of numerous cultural characteristics affecting the outcomes of treatment. In this way, it will be beneficial for a thorough examination of these people’s health status in the United States.
Application
The Purnell Model consists of twelve elements, and their combination provides a full picture of Korean Americans’ approach to health. As follows from the first element, overview, they live in the United States, but most of them arrive in the country being adults, and their self-sufficiency is lower (Jang et al., 2020). While pursuing better economic conditions, they end up without health insurance, and their poor education is added to the problems (Jang et al., 2020). The second element, communication, presents the challenge due to limited English proficiency as 85% of them cannot express their needs (Ivey et al., 2019, p. 1047). Another cultural specificity, which is a barrier to the provision of services, is a dislike of medical procedures due to physical contact (Sin & Kim, 2017). Most Korean Americans are married, and they distrust the United States’ health care system, choosing folk remedies known in their families (Sin & Kim, 2017; Hong et al., 2018). Thus, the principal challenges stem from low self-sufficiency, poor education, limited language skills, and traditions.
The situation of Korean Americans regarding their careers is more optimistic. Compared to other ethnic minorities in the United States, they reported having a better income (Ivey et al., 2019). Moreover, this indicator is even higher for people staying in the country for over fifteen years (Ivey et al., 2019). The only difficulty connected to work is their limited English proficiency (Sin & Kim, 2017). According to the survey, most Korean Americans are aware of their genetic predisposition to various conditions (Hong et al., 2018). Health-risk behaviors are primarily related to smoking for men and low physical activity for women (Ivey et al., 2019). As for pregnancy, the traditional Korean approaches apply to this aspect as well, including breastfeeding (Ivey et al., 2019). In general, the Purnell model was useful for the analysis, but it implied several limitations. They are connected to Korean Americans’ preferences to go to their home country for medical services, which are cheaper (Sin & Kim, 2017). Therefore, some topics such as American scholars do not sufficiently cover death rituals and spirituality.
Implications
The use of the Purnell Model for Culturally Competent Health Care will be extremely beneficial for my future nursing practice. Moreover, it will be even more useful when applied to individual patients rather than the ethnic group as a whole. Some questions in this model imply the need to receive personal information, which varies from patient to patient. Thus, for example, the consideration of food habits, children, allergic reactions, and other facts from one’s medical history can hardly be assessed when considering the group (Purnell, 2019). Therefore, I will continue to use this model in my daily practice, and it will help me know more about patients to increase their satisfaction with the provided services.
Conclusion
To summarize, the Purnell Model for Culturally Competent Health Care is an invaluable tool, which can be used for both ethnic minorities and their representatives. In the case of Korean Americans, it proved to be efficient in terms of analyzing this population group’s needs and allowed receiving comprehensive information on their characteristics. In turn, the division of information on categories helped reveal the gaps in knowledge of American scholars on the subject.
Thus, according to the data presented above, the issues attributed to this category of patients are connected to the lack of adaptability to life in the United States. The people tend to struggle from limited language skills, the inability to acquire health insurance, and low income resulting from the first two factors. However, these circumstances are less severe than in the case of other immigrants, and the young Koreans born in the United States face fewer problems than their parents. For them, the main difficulty is in following the traditional health care approach of their relatives, which is insufficient for most health issues. The situation is complicated by such a cultural specificity as the avoidance of physical contact and the subsequent dislike of medical procedures which require it. When complemented by the affordability of Korean services in contrast to the American ones, the attitudes of Korean Americans towards the health care system in the United States are added by distrust and the seeming unreasonableness. Therefore, it can be concluded that medical specialists should address the needs of this ethnic minority group by informing them about treatment options.
References
Hong, H. C., Lee, H., Collins, E. G., Park, C., Quinn, L., & Ferrans, C. E. (2018). Factors affecting trust in healthcare among middle-aged to older Korean American women.BMC Women’s Health, 18(1). Web.
Ivey, S. L., Kim, H., Yoo, E., Hwang, N., Cha, D. D., Lee, J., & Tseng, W. (2019). Health and healthcare needs of Koreans in San Francisco Bay area: The Korean needs assessment (KoNA) project. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 21(5), 1043-1051. Web.
Jang, Y., Park, N. S., Chiriboga, D. A., Rhee, M. K., Yoon, H., & Kim, M. T. (2020). Healthcare navigation self-sufficiency in older Korean immigrants. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 39(5), 457-462. Web.
Purnell, L. (2019). Update: The Purnell theory and model for culturally competent health care. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 30(2), 98-105. Web.
Sin, M. K., & Kim, I. H. (2017). Facilitators of and barriers to gastric cancer screening among Korean Americans. Cancer Nursing, 40(4), E59-E65. Web.