Cultural competency is the ability to understand, communicate, and interact with individuals from different cultural groups. This is important in healthcare since one’s bias due to his/her cultural identity may lead to discrimination of patients negatively affecting the achievement of healthcare goals (Purnell, 2014).
Since healthcare facilities admit all patients regardless of their cultural identities, healthcare workers should be culturally competent to facilitate effective communication and provision of healthcare services to all patients. A nurse can gather cultural information from patients by collecting information during patient education (Purnell, 2014). During patient education, nurses directly engage with patients where they can collect adequate information from patients. Since relatives and close relatives participate in patient education, a nurse is able to engage different members to collect adequate and accurate information related to diverse cultures.
This minimizes any distortion of information and opinions provided by patients (Purnell, 2014). This helps in identifying any differences in beliefs, perceptions, and practices where effective adjustments are implemented. Another way that nurses can gather cultural information from patients is by connecting with patients through social media (Bezner, 2015). Social media enables a nurse to connect with patients from diverse cultural platforms where he/she is able to interact with them to collect important information related to their cultural perceptions and beliefs (Bezner, 2015).
Cultural competence contributes to better patient care, as nurses are able to develop personal relationships with patients since they are able to understand and accommodate patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. Personal relationships are important in developing collaborative decisions as well as enable follow up of treatment interventions (Bezner, 2015). Nurses are also aware of their own bias that may lead to discrimination to certain cultural groups in the provision of healthcare services.
This prevents any resistance by patients to certain healthcare interventions or healthcare workers. Culturally competent nurses can modify patient education and treatment interventions to suit certain cultural practices that enhance the achievement of treatment goals (Truong, Paradies, & Priest, 2014). Some of the ways that a nurse can demonstrate cultural competency in nursing practice is respecting diverse cultural beliefs by not imposing his/her own preferences that may be attributed to cultural influences. Although some cultural beliefs and practices may be different from one’s own values, nurses need to acknowledge this difference and respect other cultural beliefs and practices (Truong, Paradies, & Priest, 2014).
This will prevent nurses from discriminating patients from other cultures which will enhance the achievement of healthcare goals. Addressing any bias against patients from other cultural backgrounds can also demonstrate cultural competency as this will enhance nurse-patient relationship improving the delivery of healthcare services. This also enhances communication between nurses and patients enabling nurses to identify specific healthcare needs affecting a particular cultural group (Truong, Paradies, & Priest, 2014).
References
- Bezner, J. R. (2015). Promoting Health and Wellness: Implications for Physical Therapist Practice, Physical Therapy, 95(10), 1433–1444.
- Purnell, L. D. (2014). Guide to culturally competent health care. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : F.A. Davis Company.
- Truong, M., Paradies, Y., & Priest, N. (2014). Interventions to improve cultural competency in healthcare: a systematic review of reviews. BMC health services research, 14, 99.
