Introduction
Culture is a multidimensional and complex concept with varying definitions by different scholars and practitioners. It includes the shared way of life of a community that includes beliefs, values, customs, and behavior that are regarded collectively by particular people or society. Competence refers to a multidimensional concept that includes professional qualifications including cognitive and psychomotor aspects appropriate for a particular function (Shen 307). In this regard, cultural competence describes the knowledge level that nurses require to give culturally proficient care that considers the cultural views, behaviors, and needs of the patients.
Importance of Cultural Competence
Cultural competence enhances patients’ satisfaction. People with chronic disorders need extensive healthcare. Such patients, therefore, tend to interact more with the health care providers. The practitioners, organizations, and health care systems need to work collaboratively to offer culturally competent care that would ensure that patients obtain positive health outcomes. Failure to work together in providing culturally competent services may lead to low-quality care and dissatisfaction with the health services (Sharifi et al., 2018). Improving such competence would enhance access to healthcare services in minority groups with huge healthcare disparities, such as African Americans (Grace et al., 2018). These gaps can be attributed to lack of cultural responsiveness which compromises patients’ satisfaction.
Moreover, cultural competence enhances the health care providers’ ability to recognize, respect, and appreciate the knowledge, values and norms of diverse patients. Demonstrating knowledge and behaviors that support the delivery of care to individuals from different cultural backgrounds can help not only improve access to high-quality healthcare but also reduce healthcare disparities. Therefore, culturally competent health care services are fundamental to providing the highest quality care to all patients irrespective of their racial, ethnic, and cultural origin.
Cultural Competency and Diversity and Patient- and Family-Centered Care
There exists an intricate relationship between the concepts of cultural competence and diversity in nursing. Particularly, cultural competent nurses exhibit knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support the delivery of safe and quality care to individual across different cultural background (Sharifi et al., 2019). From my experience, cultural competence nurses are aware and sensitive to the cultural base of the patients and their families, including their shared values, norms, and traditions. Recognizing the ethnic, racial or religious background of a patient is important because the risk, prevalence, and symptoms of illnesses, as well as effects of medical treatment differ across ethnic groups (Grace et al., 2018). As a caregiver, I understand that cultural beliefs influence various aspects of healthcare, such as the choice and adherence to treatment regime. I recognize how cultural values and beliefs affect how individual patients behave and think, thus enabling me to plan and provide the best care for my clients.
Furthermore, being culturally responsive requires an awareness of norms that govern how people communicate and interact within a particular cultural group. When practicing, I recognize how power, space, time, and distribution of roles between men and women within the family influence communication, which helps understand patients’ attitudes and behaviors. This awareness allows me to tune my language in a way that allows patient to understand the plan of care. For example, I assist my patients who are not proficient in English with a translator or adjust the words and phrases I use when explaining care plans to enhance their comprehension. These culturally responsive practices enable me to overcome the tendency to stereotype patients from different backgrounds and deliver safe care.
Barriers to Providing Culturally Competent Care to a Diverse Population
A wide range of factors inhibits cultural competence during service delivery. The language barrier is a significant challenge to the ability to deliver care that is responsive to cultural values and needs of patients. This aspect affects communication between the patient and the nurse (Grandpierre et al., 2018). The language barrier also complicates the development of rapport between the two parties. Information provision and delivery of instruction also become a challenge. The nurses may also face problems when engaging in intervention measures and therapy.
Cultural barriers are also significant in limiting the provision of culturally competent care. Cultural walls prohibit communication between the nurse and the patient or the caregiver. These barriers may also affect the development of rapport during service delivery. Effective diagnosis may also be a problem due to cultural barriers (Grandpierre et al., 2018). Decision-making procedures on treatment may be a challenge during health care provision due to these aspects. Similar to the linguistic limitation, cultural barriers may influence the health care service delivery during engagement in intervention or therapy. Another impediment to culturally competent care can be limited resources. This issue can hinder communication between the nurse caregiver and the patient. Nurses may face challenges when diagnosis a disease or creating rapport with their patients (Grandpierre et al., 2018). Limited resources may also affect assessments and participation in intervention processes and therapy.
Recommendations and Conclusions
The healthcare of minority groups is ineffectively fulfilled due to a lack of cultural responsiveness. Health care experts and policy formulators propose that such groups need culturally competent care to address these challenges. Nurses and other health care providers do not necessarily need to learn and familiarize themselves with each belief and behavior of certain cultures. Therefore, cultural competence describes the knowledge level that nurses require to give culturally proficient care that considers the cultural views, behaviours and needs of the patients. Healthcare providers also need to understand the cultural values and experiences of their patients since the knowledge would help the nurse and caregivers to identify the patients’ needs and provide more suitable recommendations. The health care providers need to strive to respect the diverse cultural beliefs about health that determine the health care preferences of people and the communities they assist.
References
Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016). Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public health reports. Web.
Grace, E. L., Allen, R. S., Ivey, K., Knapp, S. M., & Burgio, L. D. (2018). Racial and ethnic differences in psychotropic medication use among community-dwelling persons with dementia in the United States. Aging & mental health, 22(4), 458-467.
Grandpierre, V., Milloy, V., Sikora, L., Fitzpatrick, E., Thomas, R., & Potter, B. (2018). Barriers and facilitators to cultural competence in rehabilitation services: a scoping review. BMC health services research, 18(1), 1-14.
Sharifi, N., Adib-Hajbaghery, M., & Najafi, M. (2019). Cultural competence in nursing: A concept analysis. International journal of nursing studies, 99, 103386.