As per the U.S Bureau of the census in the year 2000, over 30% of the total population has people of different ethnicities other than whites. Thus, this statistic highlights that U.S is comprised of multicultural population today.
With the ever-increasing multicultural population in society, trans-cultural nursing has become a significant aspect of healthcare industry today. This has also brought a bigger challenge to nurses in terms of providing individualized care to the patients. In order to provide holistic care to their patients, they need to understand, appreciate and accept cultural differences in healthcare beliefs and values.
Nurses in their everyday practice, treat patients from numerous cultures, and it is highly difficult for them to be well versed about health-related belief and values of all persons. However, to ensure patient satisfaction and better patient outcomes, nurses must acquire required knowledge & skills to become deft at cross-cultural communication. When nurses develop skills in cross-cultural communication they will be able to provide effective care based on cultural practices.
Here are two steps nurses can follow to attain cultural competence:
Adoption of Attitudes to Promote Trans-cultural Nursing Care
Adoption of certain attitudes have been associated with culturally competent nursing care that includes nurses should display an empathetic and flexible attitude towards patients. So that patient feel reassured that their cultural beliefs and ways are also been considered. This also develops a sense of security among patients that their cultural ways are well received and appreciated by nurses caring for them.
Performing a Cultural Assessment
To provide culturally competent care, nurses can perform a concise cultural assessment to acquire important information about patients’ perspectives regarding essential aspects of their care. This information can be of great help for nurses when designing care plan for the patient. Additionally, nurses must conduct pain assessment on patients from diverse backgrounds as different patients have different tolerance level and it is good to conduct this test as well.
Conclusion
To deliver culturally sensitive nursing care, it is essential that practicing nurses should be given a staff development program that prepare them for providing transcultural nursing. In this program nurses can develop an awareness of different cultural ways in healthcare and learn to conduct effective cultural assessments.
These conscious efforts can play a great role in overcoming communication issues in nursing. However, for developing a culturally- fluent approach to good communication skills in nursing takes patience, practice and experience.
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