Culturally Diverse

Culturally Diverse

[Author’s Name]

Culturally Diverse

In any healthcare profession, it is the responsibility of a healthcare professional to understand the cultural background of the patients to treat them effectively. Cultural assessment is a practice that is used to determine the deeply rooted cultural norms and values along with behaviors of a specific group in society (Yauch & Steudel, 2003).

Cultural assessments involve serval components that must be considered to effectively complete the assessment. The key factor of cultural assessment is communication. The language barrier is a major issue due to which patients are unable to receive quality care. Additionally, in many cultures, the family of patients is the decision-makers regarding the healthcare issue that a specific person is facing. So, it is necessary to communicate with the caregivers as well to attain higher patient satisfaction levels. The other essential components of cultural assessments are environmental factors, social organization, and biological variation. While treating patients effectively it is necessary to consider the social organization that includes the religious and spiritual beliefs of the patients while also considering gender roles in the society from where they belong (Niemeier & Whitaker, 2003). This is because all these factors greatly impact an individual’s perspectives that can also influence an individual’s preferred ways of treatment.

To attain higher patient satisfactory by providing culturally competent healthcare to the people it is necessary to have five main communication skills. The first and foremost important communication skill is respecting each other differences. Healthcare professionals must understand and respect the difference in opinions, beliefs, and values of the patients to communicate effectively. Another important communication skill is that healthcare professionals must provide a supportive environment where the physician listens to the issues of the patients by providing an effective healthcare plan. Harmonized goals are another important communication skill (Paget & Von Kohorn, 2011). To treat a patient effectively it is necessary that physicians and patients have similar goals and they both agree upon the same method of treatment. Additionally, it is necessary to take the history of the patient so that symptoms of the new disease can be identified easily. Lastly, there must be full disclosure between patient and physician such as sharing all the economic and health circumstances to avoid any issues during treatment (Fisher & Pan, 1992).

References

Fisher, A. G., Liu, Y., Velozo, C. A., & Pan, A. W. (1992). Cross-cultural assessment of process skills. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 46(10), 876-885.

Niemeier, J. P., Burnett, D. M., & Whitaker, D. A. (2003). Cultural competence in the multidisciplinary rehabilitation setting: are we falling short of meeting needs?. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 84(8), 1240-1245.

Paget, L., Han, P., Nedza, S., Kurtz, P., Racine, E., Russell, S., ... & Von Kohorn, I. (2011). Patient-clinician communication: Basic principles and expectations. NAM Perspectives.

Yauch, C. A., & Steudel, H. J. (2003). Complementary use of qualitative and quantitative cultural assessment methods. Organizational Research Methods, 6(4), 465-481.