As diversity increases in healthcare, it also increases challenges for healthcare providers; as future healthcare workers, we should be well educated in cultural competence to deliver culturally competent care and potentially reduce healthcare inequalities. Cultural competence in health care can be defined as an understanding of how social and cultural factors influence patients’ health knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviors (Kaihlanen, et al., 2019). Therefore, with the integration of cultural competence in healthcare, providers, and health organizations can provide effective healthcare services to meet the social and cultural needs of their patients.
Why is it important for us as future healthcare workers to learn and understand cultural competence? Having a difference in communication and knowledge between patients and healthcare providers can impact their decisions when considering types of treatment and diagnoses. If healthcare providers fail to acknowledge differences between them and their patients, they may unintentionally provide lower-quality care because of cultural barriers. For example, language accessibility is important in properly understanding and interpreting the patient and their health concerns, language barriers prevent patients from accurately describing their symptoms and hinder the providers from giving a correct diagnosis which can be dangerous and unsafe.
As future healthcare providers, we must strive to develop a sense of multicultural understanding to improve communication and give culturally sensitive care to our patients. On the other hand, even if we understand and know a culture, we cannot assume that a patient who identifies as part of a cultural background will conform to all aspects of that culture. Therefore, cultural humility needs to also be addressed; cultural humility will allow us to understand the limits of our own knowledge regarding other’s cultures (Trinh, et al., 2021). This means that those who are culturally competent about their cultural awareness can have unconscious biases about cultures other than their own. Understanding cultural humility is a constant process of self-evaluation by reflecting and exploring our own beliefs and behaviors, this will allow us to improve our own awareness of our own implicit biases and create a customized approach to learning and understanding each individual patient. This understanding will allow patients the ease and the ability to practice their own autonomy and we, as providers, are able to utilize the sense of justice by bringing about equal care to every patient that we encounter in the future.
References:
Kaihlanen, A.-M., Hietapakka, L., & Heponiemi, T. (2019). Increasing cultural awareness: qualitative study of nurses’ perceptions about cultural competence training. BMC Nursing, 18(1). https://doi-org.dml.regis.edu/10.1186/s12912-019-0363-x
Trinh, N.-H., Jahan, A. B., & Chen, J. A. (2021). Moving from Cultural Competence to Cultural Humility in Psychiatric Education. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 44(2), 149–157. https://doi-org.dml.regis.edu/10.1016/j.psc.2020.12.002
Hi Van,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think cultural competency, particularly the language barrier, is something we don’t discuss enough in healthcare. Oftentimes in clinical research, informed consent forms are only translated into other languages as needed, which can take weeks or months. In fact, I once missed screening a patient for an observational study because they aged out of it while we were waiting for a consent form to get translated into Spanish. Fortunately, it was pretty low stakes, but it goes to show that language barriers have tangible repercussions, not just from a trust/understanding standpoint, but from a logistical standpoint too. And those repercussions can affect the generalizability of the data when you’re only enrolling middle/upper class white families in your studies.
Thank you for sharing this post and your insight on the subject! I am a huge advocate for incorporating cultural competency our healthcare system. I have been in a multitude of healthcare settings that were lacking not only racial diversity, but the understanding of cultural differences as well. This was observed on a firsthand basis when taking my mom to different medical specialties ranging from neurology to podiatry, and everything in between. As a healthcare worker, I often saw the communication discrepancies between doctors and patients.
ReplyDeleteIt's truly heartbreaking for me to see and experience how difficult it is on both sides, physician and patient, to understand the ailment and create a treatment plan. So much more goes into a treatment plan besides identifying the ailment and creating a treatment. Understanding what influences a patient's thought process, perception of being treated, and their environment is just as crucial as treating the patient's ailment and can greatly affect the outcome of treatment.
I believe that our society is growing in a direction that's recognizing cultural competency's effects by incorporating it into health professional schools' curriculum. However, it's clear to me that we still have a long way to go in regards to educating healthcare professionals on this matter. I look forward to the days where the gap in our knowledge in regards to cultural competency is further narrowed.
Mainous AG, Xie Z, Yadav S, Williams M, Blue AV, Hong Y. Physician Cultural Competency Training and Impact on Behavior: Evidence From the 2016 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Fam Med. 2020;52(8):562-569. https://doi.org/10.22454/FamMed.2020.163135.