Lippincott Nursing Pocket Card - November 2023

Cross-Cultural Nursing Considerations

Background

Nurses inevitably provide direct care to patients of varied ages, races, ethnicities, and cultures within the practice setting.
The historical one-size fits all approach in healthcare resulted in negative health disparities, mistrust of the healthcare system, and poor health outcomes amongst minorities and other marginalized groups.
In the U.S., our modern system of healthcare delivery is inequitable, with underserved communities and ethnic groups.
With nurses providing high-quality care to an increasingly diverse population, it’s vital for nurses to effectively communicate, build trust, and reach patients across barriers. This may include cultural, socio-economic, gender, race, ethnic, or language barriers.

Culture

Groups use shared customs, beliefs, rules, and values as a means of interpreting their experiences, as well as directing their behavior patterns.
An individual’s identified culture shapes their health-related beliefs and affects their experience of the health-care system.

Misconceptions

Traditionally, teaching cultural competency in nursing focused on understanding the norms of a particular culture, as a means to provide culturally sensitive care. This was both impractical and misguided.
The concept of cultural competency over-simplifies large cultures by not taking into account the great variation that exists within cultural groups such as Americans, Europeans, or Latin-Americans.

Encounter dynamics

Three unique cultural perspectives intersect during every healthcare encounter:
1. The culture of medicine (i.e., belief in scientific evidence and respect for patient autonomy)
2. The culture of the bedside caregiver (i.e., inherent bias and communication style)
3. The culture of the patient (i.e., language, norms, beliefs, family support structure)

To effectively manage this intersection, caregivers must exhibit respect, empathy, and curiosity as they seek to understand the patient’s individual perspective and experience.

Sociocultural differences between bedside caregivers and patients influence communication and decision-making, with evidence suggesting good communication between patients and caregivers can improve satisfaction, adherence, and health outcomes (Betancourt, Green & Carrillo, 2018).

Contemporary methods

Perspective-taking encourages caregivers to take the patient’s unique sociocultural background into consideration, as it may affect:
- How they present their symptoms (stoic versus emotive)
- Their threshold for when to seek care (proactive versus reactive)
- Comprehension of care strategies (limited versus deep health literacy)
- Expected outcomes of care (holistic/therapeutic versus medical/diagnostic)
- Likelihood of adherence or compliance with preventive measures, medication regimens, follow-up, and inclusion of alternative modalities
There is no single superior paradigm for providing appropriate and meaningful culturally-sensitive care to patients.
Available research supports the education of bedside caregivers in cross-cultural care to maximize patient outcomes.
Caregivers that acknowledge and respect sociocultural differences show improved attitudes toward patients, with more respectful and effective communication patterns.
Acknowledging the historical racial, gender, social, and ethnic disparities endemic in the healthcare system can lead to more meaningful and effective clinical encounters for both clinicians and patients.
Consider recruiting health professionals from underserved, diverse, and LGBTQ+ communities.

Current research supports a balanced approach to communication, building trust with patients, and acknowledging differences in order to transcend them.
The following are core cross-cultural issues to address with patients navigating the healthcare system:
- Communication styles
- Prejudices and mistrust
- Family dynamics and decision-making
- Traditions, customs, and spirituality
- Gender and sexuality

Time constraints are often a barrier to effective cross-cultural nursing, as it takes time to fully assess and establish a trusting relationship with new patients.

Use interpreters to assist patients with limited English-language proficiency.
- Remember to make eye contact with the patient and address the patient, not the interpreter.
- Position the interpreter so that everyone can see one another.
- Avoid medical terminology and acronyms.
- Instruct the interpreter to alert you if they perceive any communication issues.
- Keep questions short and ask one at a time.
Use online tools such as Google Translate or Medibabble if interpreter services are unavailable (Shamsi et al., 2020).
Routinely assess for understanding, utilizing a teach-back technique.
Ask patient about their desired level of family involvement in their decision-making, respecting their autonomy as well as their possible desire to include family members or defer to their choices.
Use open-ended questions to elicit patient and family input and be willing to incorporate preferred modalities and treatments as appropriate.
Alternative therapies and treatments should be considered as adjuncts to care and included whenever possible in accordance with patient and family wishes.
Assess how patients’ socioeconomic status affects their medical decision making, and offer affordable treatment strategies when possible.