Culturally competent care requires knowledge and understanding of specific cultural characteristics. Identify and discuss some organizational, professional, and personal barriers to providing culturally competent care in your nursing practice.
As cultural diversity is one of the main principles of operation in different areas in contemporary society, professionals in nursing should take into consideration this aspect as well to provide adequate and culturally competent services to patients from different cultural settings and backgrounds. So, biases and inappropriate behavior are inadmissible for the health care units. For instance, intensive care nursing practice is the field that excludes any sort of bias and cultural incompetence because the life of a patient is much more important than personal attitude to representatives of other ethnic groups and backgrounds.
As reported by Jeffreys (2006), “Professional goals, societal needs, ethical considerations, and legal issues …” should be designed to meet the needs of the population representing different social, cultural, and ethnical layers of society and requiring “… transformational change in current nursing practice, education, and research” (Jeffreys, 2006, pp. 9-10). In this respect, a teaching-learning aspect is an important part of the nursing practice in different specializations, departments, and fields. So, nursing staff should be aware of the barriers that exist on organizational, professional, and personal levels and know how to cope with the difficulties occurring on this or that level.
Organizational barriers for implementation of cultural competence in nursing include lack of education and inability to apply theory to practice. When some discrepancies exist in the cultural competence of the managerial and nursing staff of the health care unit, it is impossible to provide adequate health care services to a population when administrative units within a hospital cannot manage the work of the health care professionals appropriately ethically. At the same time, nursing staff can perceive managerial with certain biases due to lack of cultural diversity education and tact.
Professional barriers include the interactions between nursing staff and patients including their families. For instance, a collaboration between family members, patients, and nursing staff would be impossible in family nursing practice without the cultural competence of the nursing staff and family members and patients. As claimed by Friedman, Bowden, and Jones (2003), collaboration in family nursing is a part of general nursing interventions (p. 495). In this respect, a nurse would not be able to provide adequate assistance to a patient if he/she is requiring a health care provider of a specific gender/ethnicity.
Personal barriers include a personal attitude of a nursing professional to patients and co-workers that interferes with the professional ethics and cultural competence bases. In other words, if a person is not able to work with people of other ethnical groups that he/she, this individual should cope with the biases and be able to improve personal and professional skills.
There currently exists a broad discrepancy between the cultural diversity of the nursing profession and that of the general population. What strategies do you think might be used to offset this discrepancy? What are some strategies that could be used to improve the cultural competence of the nursing profession in your area?
The discrepancies between the cultural diversity of the general population and nursing staff make the process of providing health care services more challenging. This also means that nursing staff representatives should be constantly aware of the cultural competence innovations and models. For instance, it would be appropriate to promote the Purnell Model that advocates such concepts as a culture that includes diversity on different levels starting from the personal attitude and up to the global society; “Differences exist among, between, and within cultures” (Purnell, 2002, p. 193). So, the application of the information can be fulfilled as a part of the nursing practice concerning the environment and different levels such as a person, family, community, and global society. However, critical care units have no opportunity to apply family nursing practices due to the time limits that are typical for this field.
It is important to know that cultures cannot be taught as something stable and constant because they are changing. As reported by Dreher and MacNaughton (2002), “Cultures are fluid and constantly changing vis-à-vis new environments and inconstant physical, social, economic, and political circumstances” (p. 184). In this respect, nursing staff should be aware of the cultural differences concerning the changes that take place in every culture and certain discrepancies existing in views of nursing staff and the general population. For instance, it would be appropriate to hold monthly seminars or meetings aimed at enriching the cultural background of health care professionals so that they could react to different diversity issues adequately. In addition, every nurse should be eligible to consult with managerial any time concerning the cultural competence issues and certain difficulties that may occur in this area.
As cultural competence is one of the burning issues for a nursing field in health care, it is necessary to improve this aspect in all areas including critical care and intensive care units. For instance, Friedman, Bowden, and Jones (2003) review cultural diversity as a niche in health care addressing the needs of different ethnic groups as specific ones bearing in mind the importance of cultural competence. In this respect, Hispanic-American, African-American, and Asian-American families are treated differently according to the study by Friedman, Bowden, and Jones (2003, pp. 503-566). The more nursing staff is aware of the diversities, the more adequately they can address the personal and family needs of every patient.
Reference List
Dreher, M., & MacNaughton, N. (2002). Cultural competence in nursing: Foundation or fallacy? Nursing Outlook, 50(5), 181-186.
Friedman, M. M., Bowden, V. R., & Jones, E. G. (2003). Family nursing: Research, theory, and practice (5th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Jeffreys, M. R. (2006). Teaching cultural competence in nursing and health care: Inquiry, action, and innovation. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Purnell, L. (2002). The Purnell model for cultural competence. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 13(3), 193-196.