CULTURE AND DIVERSITY WITHIN NURSING CARE

Culture and Diversity within Nursing Care

Culture and Diversity within Nursing Care

Introduction

The heart and core of this paper is to critically analyze the cultural diversity within nursing care profession. Cultural diversity in nursing practice derives its conceptual base from nursing, other cross-cultural health disciplines, and the social sciences such as anthropology, sociology and psychology. Knowledge of cultural diversity is vital at all levels of nursing practice. Ethnocentric approaches to nursing practice are ineffective in meeting health and nursing needs of diverse cultural groups of clients. Knowledge about cultures and their impact on interactions with health care is essential for nurses, whether they are practicing in a clinical setting, education, research or administration. Cultural diversity addresses racial and ethnic differences; however, these concepts or features of the human experience are not synonymous. The changing demographics of the nation as reflected in the 1990 census will increase the cultural diversity of the U.S. population by the year 2000, and what have heretofore been called minority groups will, on the whole constitute a national majority (Census, 1990).

According to a position statement from the American Nurses Association, it's important:

“…that the nurse consider specific cultural factors impacting on individual clients and recognize that intracultural variation means that each client must be assessed for individual cultural differences.” (American Nurses Association)

Madeleine Leininger, RN, PhD, CTN, FAAN, founder of Transcultural Nursing, encourages nurses to open their minds to a broader way of knowing and helping people through culture-specific care knowledge. Leininger, who is professor emeritus at Wayne State University, Detroit, urges RNs to get a working knowledge of the culture of each patient population that crosses the facility's threshold. It's crucial to providing pain management with

“…care that is meaningful and fits with cultural beliefs and life ways.” (Leininger M.)

Knowledge and skills related to cultural diversity can strengthen and broaden health care delivery systems. Other cultures can provide examples of a range of alternatives in services, delivery systems, conceptualization of illness, and treatment modalities. Cultural groups often utilize traditional health care providers, identified by and respected within the group. Concepts of illness, wellness, and treatment modalities evolve from a cultural perspective or world view. Concepts of illness, health, and wellness are part of the total cultural belief system. Culture is one of the organizing concepts upon which nursing is based and defined. Nurses need to understand:

how cultural groups understand life processes;

how cultural groups define health and illness;

what cultural groups do to maintain wellness;

what cultural groups believe to be the causes of illness;

how healers cure and care for members of cultural groups; and

how the cultural background of the nurse influences the way in which care is delivered.

Nurses and Personal Culture

Nurses bring their personal cultural heritage as well as the cultural and philosophical views of their education into the professional setting. Therefore, it is important for the nurse to understand that nurse-patient encounters include the interaction of three cultural systems: the culture of the nurse, the culture of the ...