Introduction
To deliver proper healthcare services, a nurse has to be aware of culture-specific factors that affect a target group. Therefore, learning the essential components of cultural competence is critical to the management of people’s needs. For this paper, a representative of the Asian American community was interviewed and asked about the healthcare practices, beliefs, and principles followed in her community.
To explore the effects that the specified beliefs and ideas have on the well-being of Asian American people, Purnell’s Model was used. The interview results show that language barriers and the lack of understanding of Asian American spirituality affects the quality of care, thus leading to a drop in the life expectancy rates among the vulnerable demographic. Therefore, a coherent approach aimed at helping nurses to appeal to the spiritual aspects of the Asian American community and invite family members to support patients is critical to the improvement of care.
Purnell’s Model
Healthcare Practices
The interviewee explained that Asian American health practices incorporated the elements of both cultures. The Asian influence manifests itself in the tendency to use herbs when addressing minor health complications. However, in case of serious health concerns, Asian Americans seek the assistance of health experts.
Healthcare Providers
Communication between Asian Americans and their healthcare providers tends to remain inconsistent. The observed problem exists due to the trend among the target demographic to consult healthcare experts only in case of an urgent need. Therefore, patient education is required to change the current situation. Nurses will have to combine different types of media to avoid possible misunderstandings and manage possible language issues, thus inviting patients to start a learning curve.
Overview/Heritage
The current social, economic, and financial status of Asian American citizens can be seen as moderate. While the specified group remains a minority, it is recognized in contemporary American society. Furthermore, the cultural needs of Asian Americans are acknowledged and partially met in the U.S. social context.
Communication
According to the results of the interview, communication should be the primary area for concern for nurses that tend to the needs of the Asian American population. The language barrier remains one of the most difficult issues to address, hence the inability to encourage patient education (Kim & Zane, 2016). Therefore, means for conveying crucial information to the target demographic should be introduced into present-day nursing. Specifically, interactive digital tools should be seen as the solution.
Family Roles and Organization
As the interviewee explained, family plays a huge role in the Asian American culture. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that a patient has family support. However, as research shows, there is a lack of knowledge about the family health history in a range of Asian American households (Chen, Li, Talwar, Xu, & Zhao, 2016). The interview confirmed this fact, which means that there is a necessity to encourage Asian Americans to explore their FHH in depth.
Workforce Issues
The interview identified the presence of certain workplace disparities in the Asian American community. Therefore, it is critical to introduce strategies that will allow the vulnerable population to experience equality in the business setting. The specified change will imply a transfer to the system that will allow Asian American employees to feel valued in the workplace.
Biocultural Ecology
From the perspective of diversity, the health issues faced by Asian Americans require additional attention. Because of the lack of communication between nurses and patients, a range of health concerns experienced by the specified demographic remain concealed. Thus, further exploration of the subject matter is required.
High-Risk Behaviors
According to the results of the interview, Asian Americans typically tend to avoid the behaviors that may lead to the deterioration of health. However, the interviewee agreed that there were certain problems in the recent behaviors adopted by younger Asian Americans. Particularly, the respondent explained that there had been alcohol abuse among Asian American young adults. The discussed problem, indeed, exists in the realm of modern reality (Hahm, Augsberger, Feranil, Jang, & Tagerman, 2017). Therefore, interventions are required to manage the issue of alcohol abuse among young Asian Americans.
Nutrition
The presence of Asian philosophies, particularly the idea of balance, or the Yin and Yang, allow Asian Americans to maintain a rather healthy diet. As the results of the interview show, a range of Asian Americans have embraced the available food options, yet there is a tendency to follow the principle of harmony in the choice of food. As a result, the problems associated with eating habits, particularly obesity, are practically nonexistent in the specified community (Banna, Gilliland, Keefe, & Zheng, 2016).
Pregnancy
As the interviewee explains, traditional birth practices are less common nowadays among Asian American women, yet there is still a strong propensity toward the specified approach. On the one hand, the proposed technique reduces the opportunities for receiving quality care. On the other hand, Asian American women feel more comfortable in the traditional setting during childbirth (Saito & Lyndon, 2017). Therefore, a compromise is needed to address the specified concern.
Death
The interview has proven that there is a specific attitude toward death in the Asian American community. The specified viewpoint is rooted deeply in the traditional Asian concept of death. Particularly, the management of the specified issue is particularly difficult for a nurse since the topic of death is tabooed in the Asian culture (Lee, Hinderer, & Alexander, 2016). Therefore, it is important to introduce the patient to the necessity to address the subject matter very carefully and with due tactfulness. Otherwise, the process of care will result in an inevitable failure.
Spirituality
Asian American patients have specific spiritual needs that have to be met in order to ensure quality care. As the interview has shown, the specified needs include the opportunity to align the offered health services with the religious practices that the Asian American community supports. Therefore, a spiritual care model is required as an additional tool for improving recovery rates among Asian Americans (Hodge, Sun, & Wolosin, 2014).
Conclusion
The interview results prove that there is a need to establish a closer connection between nurses and Asian American patients. Although the vulnerable group in question has made significant progress in improving access to health services for its representatives, there are still numerous issues to be addressed. Particularly, nurses seem to have a rather poor understanding of how the needs of Asian American patients should be met. Therefore, a framework for promoting cultural competence among nurses is critical. Nurses will have to pay closer attention to the spiritual and cultural needs of the target population. Specifically, gender issues and the reluctance to use nursing services have to be seen as the key impediments to increasing recovery and well-being levels among Asian Americans.
References
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