The Concept Of Cultural Competencies And Opinion Of Patients

Introduction

Culture competencies can be defined as ability of organisation for delivering health care services. This would help in meeting the social, culture as well as linguistic needs of people. Nursing practice is said to be most complex activity in health and social care sector. It is also known as multilayered culture of practice which qualify itself with every interaction (Forte and Flores, 2014). The purpose of present essay is to highlight major problems and issues of culture diversity which directly impacts on nursing practice. It also explore barriers which come between health professionals and patients as well as ways to overcome from the same.

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Impact of culture on nursing practice

Culture can be defined as beliefs, shared traditions, customers and institutions of a certain group of society, having same religion or ethnicity. It is also stated as pattern of responses developed by a particular society to solve a specific problem. In context with organisation, culture competencies brings knowledge of different people together and transform it into policies or standards that make everything work (McCormack and McCance, 2016). Thus, culture competencies has capacity to bring people together under cross-culture settings and work effectively. It helps in producing better outcomes and adds operational effectiveness as well. In context with professional practices like nursing in health and social care, there are many factors that nurses must consider for delivering culturally competent care. Nursing is becoming a cultural melting pot due to migration within the field. It includes health beliefs and religion which directly impacts on nursing practice. For this process, to provide effective services to patients, it is essential for such professionals to understand the concept of cultural difference. It refers to those attributes which differentiate a group of people or individuals from others. This concept includes demographical factors like race, gender, age etc. and values or norms of people.

In health and social sector (HSC), cultural difference between services providers, patients and others, are actually occurred due to beliefs and religion. It arise discrepancies in nursing practices which directly affect patients compliance in negative manner. According to belief of Roberts (2016), attitude and beliefs of individuals in respect to illness, identifies their behavioural response towards procedure of treatment. Therefore, it becomes essential for nurses and other service providers to determine patients belief. It will help them to meet specific needs of individuals related to health issues as well as optimise their care also. In addition to this, own health belief of nurses also reflect the potentials for influencing attitudes towards patients. For example: A service provider in HSC, deals with patients more harmoniously and respect their belief while giving treatment (Manojlovich and Ketefian, 2016). While in same place, another nurse force people who are facing health issues, to take medicines without listening towards their belief. Thus, both cases shows the cultural difference as well as ways of giving treatment. Similarly, diverse care needs of ill persons also impact on nursing practice. Lack of awareness and insensitivity to cultural difference of nursing staff shows poor patient compliance to treatment, negatively impact on patient care. Therefore, to meet health needs of patients, nurses must treat them fairly and with dignity. Along with this, they should give respect to personal belief of people also. This would help in reducing the occurrence of discrepancies which adversely affect nursing practices of service providers in HSC.

As per belief and opinion of Laschinger (2014), it has evaluated that apart from socio-culture difference, there are many other factors present which impact on nursing practice. It includes education background, socio-economic factors, lifestyle and more. Therefore, increasing diversities and developing education background of people , influence care strategies and professionalism within practices. For example: A patients having good knowledge of medicines or belongs to high educational background, prefer to read whole medical report first before taking any treatment. They analyse what type of prescriptions are going to be given to them and the way it impacts on their health. Therefore, under such case, it creates complexity in front of service providers to deal with such patients. As they have to give proper respect to belief and norms of such people. Therefore, it assists nurses to change strategies to get positive behavioural response of them towards treatment. Since there are several strategies are employed at HSC to improve culturally competent practice and cultural awareness within nursing. For example: Giving training and learning sessions to nurses to reduce the health inequalities, which exist across cultural groups. It is considered as the best way to improve nursing care provided at health care organisations. Under this session, nurses can enhance knowledge related to cultural differences between Eastern and Western nursing practice (Mackelprang, Salsgiver and Salsgiver, 2016). Through this process, they will also understand concept of religious influences of nursing throughout the world. By learning about cultural difference, aid nurses to adopt effective strategies and approaches for providing better care. It includes Holistic and Easter nursing approaches, which provide different-different criteria of nursing practices. Holistic nurses treat patients on individual basis with true-case like healing the mind, soul and body of patients. While herbal therapies and cleansing includes in Easter nursing approaches which seems to be more healthier than holistic. Therefore, it is necessary for nurses to conduct study about different-different approaches of nursing which leads them to provide better health services.

Conclusion

From this report, it has analysed that cultural difference at any organisation create a large impact on professional practices. Different beliefs, practices, values and language are considered as those aspects which differentiate individuals or group of people from each other. It either foster or hinder the skills of people having cultural difference at organisation. In context with health and social factor, belief of patients, working staff and all associated people, directly impact on nursing practices. It also influences way of giving treatment and how patient perceive health issues. Therefore, it is necessary for nurses to understand the concept of cultural competencies and must respect belief and opinion of patients. It would help in getting positive behavioural response or patients towards illness and treatment.

Reference

Mackelprang, R. W., Salsgiver, R. O. and Salsgiver, R., 2016. Disability: A diversity model approach in human service practice. Oxford University Press.
Laschinger, H. K. S., 2014. Impact of workplace mistreatment on patient safety risk and nurse-assessed patient outcomes. Journal of Nursing Administration. 44(5). pp.284-290.
Manojlovich, M. and Ketefian, S., 2016. The effects of organizational culture on nursing professionalism: Implications for health resource planning. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive. 33(4).
McCormack, B. and McCance, T. eds., 2016. Person-centred practice in nursing and health care: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Roberts, M., 2016. Mediation in family disputes: principles of practice. Routledge.
Forte, A. M. and Flores, M. A., 2014. Teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace: A study of Portuguese teachers. European Journal of Teacher Education. 37(1). pp.91-105.

Impact of Culture on Professional Practice

Introduction

Impact of culture on nursing practice

Conclusion

Reference

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