Answer

Diversity and Health Assessment

The aim of healthcare providers is to provide patients with the quality care. However, to achieve this, the healthcare professionals must be culturally knowledgeable and this requires sensitivity to the patients’ socioeconomic situation, sexual orientation, ethnicity, heritage, and cultural background. Against this background, this paper analyzes the case of Mr. AG, male Caucasian aged 54 who suffers from a seizure caused by alcohol withdrawal. In particular, the paper describes his spiritual, socioeconomic, cultural and lifestyle factors, sensitive issues to be considered, as well as, target question to be asked during the assessment.

Spiritual, Socioeconomic, Cultural and Lifestyle Factors for Mr. AG

             One of the major goals of advanced nurse practitioners during assessment is to minimize health disparities and attain equitable health care (Ball et al., 2015). Therefore, a nurse practitioner should clearly understand the diversity in health care system and tailor their health assessment recommendations and techniques to accommodate diversity. To successfully carry out health assessment for Mr. AG, the nurse practitioner must be culturally aware, understand the uniqueness of his condition, understand the essence of offering an individualized care, as well as, understanding the cultural factors that may hinder his health care.

            Some of the socioeconomic factors for Mr. AG include hypertension, poverty, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness. As a socioeconomic factor, poverty has a significant effect on the health condition of Mr. AG. The socioeconomic factors described above subjects Mr. AG to a situation of being illegible to access  appropriate medical care including health insurance and education to understand the right time to seek medication attention. Moreover, Mr. AG is not educated that smoking will worsen his hypertension that will consequently exposure him to deadly diseases such as lung cancer. Similarly, while conducting the assessment, the nurse practitioner should be focused at establishing the health literacy of Mr. AG. This will assist in establishing whether Mr. AG understands how smoking affects the heart and lung, make him become aware of the available resources that can assist him control withdrawal from alcoholism and drug abuse. Intuitively, increasing his health awareness through education on hypertension strict following of medication is a key consideration to be taken for the patient (Barratt, 2018).

Sensitive Issues to Consider When Addressing the Patient

             For a nurse practitioner to carry out appropriate assessment on Mr. AG, the practitioner must be culturally sensitive. Cultural sensitively entails understanding that there exist cultural similarities and differences between people without necessarily assigning them a value, worse or better, negative or positive, wrong or right (Ko et al., 2013). Given that Mr. AG is significantly affected by socioeconomic factors including abusing drugs and poor lifestyle of smoking, the nurse practitioner should remain unbiased, avoid any assumption or judging the patient. Moreover, the nurse practitioner should use active listening, perceive the patient as person in need and offer individualist care, build rapport and trust and gain more information about Mr.  Wannasirikul, Termsirikulchai, Sujirarat, Benjakul and Tanasugarn (2016) posited that engaging patients in conversation assists healthcare practitioners to establish the most appropriate resources for the patients.

Target Questions for the Patient

What is the last time you consulted a physician to assist you manage your blood pressure and prescription for Amlodipine?

Are you that there exist community resources that can provide you with housing?

Has anyone ever given you any assistance for alcoholism and drug abuse?

Have you ever tried committing suicide or developed any thought of committing suicide?

What other activities do you do for fun apart from taking alcohol and smoking to help you calm down?