1. STUDENT THERESIA
How can community health nurses apply the strategies of cultural competence to their practice?
According to Abualhaija, (2021), Cultural competence in nursing academia and practice is needed due to the increase of multiculturalism in the U.S.; hence, it was proposed as a strategy to reduce health disparities among ethnic minorities and vulnerable population. As a community nurse, to be able to practice cultural competency, first you must be culturally competent about you own belief and be opened to accept other people’s belief within the community. Health professionals working in and within community groups and organizations will need to increase their skills by taking time to reflect on strategies for acculturation and barriers to fostering integration or assimilation while honoring diversity and respecting all peoples. Also, community health nurse must practice cultural competence, use communication and relational strategies that respect clients’ values, expectations, and goals without diminishing the nurses’ own values, expectations, and goals. For example, the nurse must use strategies that would allow her to effectively communicate with the client and modify nursing interventions that are based upon culturally informed nursing science, also understands that the client has the right to judge whether she has received the care she wanted and to follow up with appropriate action if she did not receive that care (Stanhope & Lancaster, n.d.)
Cultural preservation /Barriers
Example: Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese practice of inserting needles in specific points on the skin through which life energy flows, is used to relieve pain or cure diseases by restoring balance of yin and yang (Stanhope & Lancaster, n.d.). The barrier to this strategy is that it leads to prejudice because in as much as acupuncture is an ancient Chinese practice of pain management, not everyone in that community practice it.
Cultural accommodation/Barriers
Example: In some cultures, they belief that if a baby is born with some ammonitic sac on their face, is a vision that something special was going to happen in the person’s life. The barrier to this strategy is stereotype.
Cultural re-patterning/ Barriers
Example: A culturally competent school nurse who works with Mexican Americans knows of the high incidence of obesity among women 20 years and older. Using this information, she developed a health education program for Mexican teenagers in the local high school. While respecting their cultural traditions, the nurse discussed weight management strategies with the teenagers (Stanhope & Lancaster, n.d.). The barrier to this strategy is racism.
Cultural brokering/ Barriers
Example: A public health nurses also advocate for the rights of migrant workers to receive quality health care. The barrier to this strategy is stereotyping
