Reflect on the Transcultural Nursing Self-Assessment that you completed during Week 2. Not all of us will have the opportunity to participate in an international nursing experience for even a few week

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Transcultural Nursing Self-Assessment

Introduction

Cutting down the health disparities and attaining equitable health care are the vital objectives of the United States healthcare system. According to Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Cultural competence in this case is viewed as a foundation pillar that can reduce the disparities existing through culturally sensitive and unbiased quality care. This type of care respects diversity and considers factors such as language, communication styles, attitudes , beliefs and behaviors that attributes to health and wellness of an individual. This short paper reflects on the unique contributions that I will be able to make following the completed assessment, explaining the experiences and wisdom that I will bring into practice when performing patient’s care and mentions the challenges that I might face as an individual or my family for participating in such an opportunity.

Contributions

The Transcultural Nursing self-Assessment utilizes models that respond to students nurses’ need to assess and design care for culturally diverse patients (Giger & Davidhizar, 2004).The assessment process involved creating cultural awareness where individuals explore their own cultural and professional backgrounds while scrutinizing personal bias and comprehending diversity issues in the healthcare delivery system. The first unique contribution is to ensure effective communication strategies in care delivery. Communication ensures students nurses’ are able to deliver safe, culturally competent care and mutual understanding of patient’s cultural needs. Whether verbal or non-verbal, communication accounts for large portion of cultural disconnect between student nurses and the patients.

The second contribution is to understand personal views of culture through assessing patients’ views on passage of time, point in time and duration of time. Most cultures are oriented based on the past where they value traditions and doing things as their predecessors. This factor can lead to unwillingness to accept technology or modern treatment. Some of the cultures stress on the present and may seem unconcern about the future. Such individuals may disagree with prevention methods. It is therefore vital that as student nurse, one should be concerned about personal and cultural views related to time.

Experience and Wisdom

The first experience and wisdom element that I will bring to care of patients is ensuring personal space is provided for patients. Human vary greatly in their comfort level related to individual space. Some spatial issues are related to personal preferences thus should not be ignored. As a nurse I should be aware of the patient’s comfort level related to body distance during conversation, proximity to his family members, eye contact and the perception of space.

The second experience and wisdom to apply will be to develop social organization. Through social organizations, humans learn and adopt cultural beliefs. This can facilitate the individuals from cultural diverse backgrounds to manifest different degrees of acculturation into the belief of a similar dominant culture. I will factor in geography, socioeconomic status, religion affiliations, gender and sexual orientations, age and life cycle status in ensuring proper care delivery to patients.

Challenge

The first challenge is to ensure there is effective environmental control. This control impacts a patient’s ability within their cultural system to plan activities that control the environment and the perception of personal control over the factors in the environment. The challenge is apply assessing factors such as locus of control , folk medicine and health beliefs which are play roles in environmental control and are vital in the way the patient defines illness and wellness.

References

Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (2014). Improving cultural competence to reduce health disparities for priority populations.Retrieved from http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/ehc/products/573/1934/cultural-competence-protocol-140709.pdf

Giger, J. N., & Davidhizar, R. E. (2004). Transcultural nursing: assessment and intervention (4thed.).St.Louis:Mosby.Institute for Health Care Improvement (2014). Health disparitiescollaboratives.Retrievedfromhttp://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/OtherWebsites/HealthDisparitiesCollaboratives.aspx