Cultural competence is an essential component of a quality health care system.
Understanding cultural variances of population served can be detrimental to health
outcomes. However, as sated by Rosen et al (2004) “Knowing the health practices and
cultures of all groups is not possible but becoming familiar with various groups’ general
health beliefs and variances can be very beneficial and improve the effectiveness of health
care services” (Rosen et al, 2004). In your opinion, what are some effective ways of getting
accustomed to various cultures? What is multicultural health, and why is it important?
Knowing the health practices and cultures of all groups is not possible, but becoming
familiar with various groups (Rosen, et al., 2004). I can agree with that statement that you
will be able to know the cultures of all groups, just for the simple fact that there are so
many cultures with different beliefs. Some effective ways that I feel that a public health
nurse or any person can use to get accustomed to another culture is taking the time to learn
the culture and recognize that differences. As a case manager I encounter various people
from a variety of cultures from Ethiopian to Middle Eastern cultures. Another effective
way to getting accustomed to these cultures is when speaking with them listen to what they
are telling you about their preferences, recognize what is happening when you are speaking
with them, who is responding, who is making eye contact, and even body language. You can
also ask questions to get clarification on what is acceptable in the culture of population,
they are often willing to educate you and learning culture differences is a lifelong journey.
Multicultural health is being able to provide quality healthcare to a variety of ethnic
backgrounds with the ability to respect any differences. It’s important in healthcare
because you will treat many people from many different cultural backgrounds and as a
public nurse you have to have the ability to recognize that not everyone has the same beliefs
and recognizing this will be able to allow you to determine the safe, quality healthcare they
seek.
Reference
Rosen, J., Spatz, E. S., Gaaserud, A. M. J., Abramovitch, H., Weinreb, B.,Wenger, N. S.,
Margolis, C. Z. (2004). Introduction to multicultural health. Introduction to Multicultural
Health. Multicultural health. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett. ISBN-13: 978
Cultural Competence
Hello Claudia,
Your post on cultural competence in health care is elaborate and transparently explains
the concept’s importance. You assert that cultural competence is a critical feature of a healthcare
system. The supposition is correct since health care workers deal with many people from
different backgrounds and have diverse ideologies. On that note, a clinician needs to be aware of
cultural differences to provide care suited to a person’s background. Effective care entails
CULTURAL COMPETENCE 2
providing services tailored to clients’ needs; this can only be enabled through cultural
competence (Henderson et al., 2018). You also note that it is essential to know the health
practices of some cultures as needed. It means that clinicians should be focused on becoming
familiar with the health practices of the populations they interact with to enable effective care.
CULTURAL COMPETENCE 3
References
Henderson, S., Horne, M., Hills, R., & Kendall, E. (2018). Cultural competence in healthcare in
the community: A concept analysis. Health & Social Care in the Community, 26(4), 590-
603.