Answer

Culturally Competent Nursing Care

Nurses are in most cases exposed to critical work conditions which require them to be very sensitive to not just the demographic nature of their clients, but also their culture. This concern introduced the concept of culturally competent nursing care. Culturally competent nursing care is the process of demonstrating appreciation, knowledge and understanding of the patients’ cultures; acceptance and respect of cultural variations and providing of health care service that is in tandem with the patients’ cultural framework (Catalano, 2003). Culturally Competent Nursing care is very imperative in establishing rapport with patients and in accurately assessing, developing, and implementing nursing interventions formulated to meet a patient’s needs (Aboshaiqah et al., 2017). This paper briefly discusses an overview of the topic of culturally competent nursing care, review of articles search process and a synthesis of the information from the articles identified.

The internet was used to get the sources. To get the right articles, the topic was typed into a browser then scholarly articles identified and critically reviewed. First the articles were defined, the library research databases were used to locate scholarly articles. The articles were then evaluated based on their citation. The full texts were located from the databases and finally, the full text article were evaluated, to establish if they are authentic, accurate, current and relevant.

From the reviews, the need for culturally Competent care has been established by The American Nurses Association. According to Quickfall (2010), The association recognized the need to provide culturally competent care and thus made a provision for the same in its association’s code. Aboshaiqah et al. (2017), also emphasizes that the code of practice state that nurses in all disciplines should practice and implement their work with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, uniqueness and worth and of every patient they interact with. Catalano, (2003) also observes that this phenomenon was particularly induced by the tragic attack of the World Trade Center in New York City which left many people with differently cultural background with urgent need of health care attention. It from then that the nursing fraternity wad challenged to formulate nursing practices which are sensitive to the cultural background of the recipients of their services. According to Flowers (2004), culturally competent has become an integrals part of nursing practice in many parts of the world because it improves the quality of service.

When patients are admitted for long, they and even their relatives get stressed. The situations worsen when there are cultural concerns that are not addressed. Culture informs how people live within their families and communities. According to Quickfall (2010), there are some cultures which do not allow young female nurses to perform some treatment to old men. In yet other cultures, certain treatment has to be administered according to the patient’s desire. Upon failures to abide by the culture, the process of treatment loses its integrity and competence and thus the ultimate service rendered to them. This explain why nursing treatment has been refined to be collaborative such that they patients are allowed to take part in the treatment process. They have a right to consent to service given and even how it is given. According to Catalano (2003), provision of culturally incompetent nursing care can greatly increase the stress of the patients and even that of their relatives. Consequently, the process of healing becomes long because of negativity about the treatment.

 It is appreciated that proper nutrition is very important in health care provision. On the other hand, the subject of nutrition is complicated by the reality that culture defines nutrients in unique ways. What is good nutritious food may not be common between culturally diverse patients. Unfortunately, most health facilities provide common meals which may not be culturally accepted by some patients. It is, therefore, important to integrate cultural aspects of food preparation by for instance asking the patients what they would to eat and wish how they would wish that their food be prepared. In the event that the hospital or health facility cannot prepare such a meal, family member can be allowed to prepared the same (Flowers, 2004). There is thus need to understand the cultural positions about a treatment process before a treatment of a patient commences so that the final treatment is culturally competent.

Model of Culturally Competent Nursing Care

According to Aboshaiqah et al. (2017), culturally competent care is defined by cultural awareness, cultural encounter, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, and cultural desire. Cultural awareness is the understanding one’s own culture through self-examination and deep adventure of one’s own cultural and professional personal history. In other word, a nurse need to examine herself/himself to understand the cultural principles with regards to his/her family setting and professional background. This would imply understanding the values and beliefs which inform their view points of nursing care.

 Cultural knowledge, on the other hand, the process of learning the cultural differences among the different ethnic groups within a community. This may be long but since digital information is accessible most of the time to everyone, a nurse can easily get to discover the cultural fundamental of the various ethnic groups within one’s community. Additionally, the nurses can read books, journals or even conduct researches about culture particularly those that effects health service provision and effectiveness (Aboshaiqah et al., 2017).

Cultural skill is the expertise a nurse gets through collection of pertinent cultural data and information about a patient’s problem and accurately perform a culturally specific and acceptable clinical evaluation. To achieve this this effectively, a nurse needs social organization, communication space, environmental control, time, and biological variations. The fourth component, which is cultural encounter, is the process through which nurses directly engage in cross-cultural and personal but professional interactions with patients from diverse cultures. The direct engagement and interaction with patients let them understand that one care about them, and their participation in the treatment process. Lastly, Cultural desire id the motivation of a nurse to understand the cultural diversities that affect health care.   Nurse become culturally aware and to seek cultural encounters (Greene, 2010).

Conclusion

Culturally competent nursing care the practice of provision of health services that is formulated with respects to cultural dictates of patients. It is important that patients culture to incorporated in the treatment process through cultural awareness, encounter, cultural knowledge, cultural skills, cultural desire.