Cultural Competency Essay

344 Words2 Pages
Culture has a major effect on every aspect of human life. As health care providers, nurses need to be aware of the client's beliefs, values, customs and how it influences the care they provide and the client's behavior towards it. Adapting to different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for the patient's way of thinking and behaving. To provide culturally appropriate care, the nurse needs to learn the skills to understand culturally influenced behaviors and attitudes towards the illness so that she can provide the holistic care to the patient.

Cultural Competency: "It is a capacity of individuals or services to incorporate ethnic/cultural considerations in all aspects of their work relative to health promotion, disease prevention and other health care interventions"(Killian, 2009).

Importance of cultural competency in nursing practice: As the populations of diverse cultural and ethnic group increases, the attention to culturally competent care becomes more important. Cultural differences, such as customs, beliefs, values and traditions can have a profound effect on patients perception of illness. It influences how we care for the patients and how the patients respond to the care. Having the appropriate knowledge and the understanding about the culture allows the nurse to gain the respect and trust from the patient and the family. Both, the nurse and the patient can communicate easily and effectively to work towards improving the health. It has been proven that culturally competent care is directly related to positive patient outcomes.

"Efforts to improve client outcomes and culturally centered care have been championed by the Joint Commission. The national accrediting body for hospitals was represented on the committee that developed the National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services. Its
Open Document