The nursing practice
The nursing practice involves a variety of competencies to be adhered to by a nurse to ensure effective service delivery. The main focus of any given nurse is to deliver services to patients to the best of their knowledge and abilities. One of the competencies is the aspect of culture that is necessary to incorporate in nursing practice. Cultural needs and beliefs are given to patients appropriately and when required by them. Therefore, cultural nursing practice can be defined as the capacity for health workers to provide adequate healthcare services while ensuring that the patients’ social-cultural, ethical, and lingual needs are met in full. The ability to work with different people who are of diverse cultural, economic, political, and religious affiliations is considered as cultural competence.
Equipping nurses with social care knowledge has numerous advantages to them during their practice in healthcare systems. Nurses can accept, respect, and welcome people of diverse cultures in treating and taking care of the sick. Being able to understand a client’s culture and how it influences her daily life, especially the values and beliefs in matters of health and wellness, is crucial to nurses, it helps them to formulate and facilitate better and more humane assessments and caring plans that conform with the patient’s culture. Nurses can create a good relationship with their patients when they identify and respect the person’s lifestyle, thus giving better care without necessarily viewing the person as just a patient to treat. Also, nurses can be able to integrate their culture with that of the patient, thus come up with alternative inventions such as therapy and meditation to help in treating the patient.
Cultural competence necessitates a nurse to be a person who views matters at a different angle through being open-minded and ready to listen to what others say. In most cases, the nurse has to set aside her cultural beliefs to serve others effectively. The interaction with people of diverse opinions requires a person who can adjust to suit different personalities at work. To be better in cultural awareness, a nurse needs to create self-awareness. A nurse needs to understand her cultural background before appreciating other cultures. Understanding her people’s values and beliefs, where they came from, or why they migrated will help in gaining a sense of appreciation for other people’s traditions.
Another way of gaining competence is through learning. There are different ways that you can learn and understand cultures. As a nurse, you can read materials that have the information or find a person who will be the guide. You can also engage in local cultural groups and activities where you will interact with the people and understand their ways of life. Nurses can conduct research in the cultural groups where they can get vast information about their traditions. Having a better understanding of the ways of the people helps a nurse in quick assessment of the patient and thus come up with the appropriate diagnosis.
The transcultural nursing theory requires nurses to familiarize themselves with how culture plays a role in the health management of a person. Cultural beliefs can influence a patient’s health condition, especially where the person is using home-made remedies that have been culturally termed as medicinal. According to Leininger, care should be the dominant nursing practice that unifies all. According to her, nurses should embrace three modes, which include the preservation and maintenance of culture, accommodation and care negation, and lastly, restructuring and re-patterning of cultural responsibility. Nurses are supposed to be cautious in dealing with a patient’s cultural background as it is essential in health delivery. How a person responds to treatment and health is greatly affected by the person’s culture.
Apart from influencing health and medical response, cultural backgrounds are influential in the patient-nurse relationship. Cultures have a different view of illnesses and health of their members in the society. There are those that are mindful of well-being and thus appreciate seeking medical services. Others do not go to the hospital and believe that the illness can be cured using traditional means. Handling people from either of the two cases is different from one another due to their beliefs. Some cultures prefer their members living away from areas that are highly populated with different cultures. Others have no problem living in urban areas where the number of diverse people is high. Those that live in seclusions have a hard time being admitted to hospitals with other people.
The role of individuals in a culture differ from one culture to another. Some cultures view one gender as superior to the other, while others share rights equally. A female nurse taking care of a client who is from a culture that views women as inferior will have a harder time associating with the patient. In some, the elders make the rules, and the young listen. A young nurse will have to understand an elderly person from such a background in directing him. Nurses have an easier time taking care of a patient whose beliefs in self-efficacy are firm. Such individuals are motivated to recovering fast and will participate in any guidelines given. For those that do not believe in self-efficacy, they are demotivated and have a hard time improving. Cultures whose members focus on the future are able to make decisions that will help in the future, while those that focus on the past do not want to participate in activities such as healthy dieting to help in a healthy lifestyle in the coming future.
The patient-nurse relationship is greatly affected by the above cultural factors where the influence may be positive or negative. Cultures that promote the well-being of their members ensure that the patient has a good and healthy relationship with the nurse, thus creating an enabling environment for her to treat him quickly. Nurses must understand each client’s cultural beliefs so that she does not feel intimidated, especially by elderly people. The nurse is the most immediate person that a patient in the ward can reach out to; hence the relationship between them should be enhanced to promote openness.
In conclusion, nurses have a significant role in ensuring that individual cultural beliefs and values are respected and accepted. Nurses are required not to be biased to other people due to their cultural backgrounds but instead, be ready to serve them irrespective of their cultural diversity. They have cultural competency in nursing practice that enables nurses to understand different cultures and how they live. Studying people’s culture helps nurses in cultural awareness and can be achieved through interaction with the people or studying about them. To maintain a healthy nurse-client relationship, nurses are required to understand the different cultures of the people. Understanding the cultures minimizes the challenges of associating with the patients. It promotes closeness and openness of the patients; thus, the nurse is able to know the client’s situation. Nurses are required to sometimes keep out their cultural beliefs and values to be able to take care of their patients.