Cultural Competence in Nursing

Running head: CULTURAL COMPETENCE IN NURSING 1
Cultural Competence in Nursing
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CULTURAL COMPETENCY IN NURSING 2
Cultural Competence in Nursing
In line with cultural competence care, a person’s culture is an attribute that differentiates
the mentioned individual from another. Culture is known to shape spirituality, sexuality,
lifestyle, and perceptions of prevailing societal norms. Sadly, many healthcare practitioners
overlook the value of cultural competence and agree that case-by-case contexts should guide the
appropriate approach to the same. Substantially, nurses are obliged to attempt and understand the
varied cultures and beliefs since awareness of cultural competence is vital in the health care
world. There is a pressing need for nurses and other health practitioners to respect and embrace
the cultural differences that exist among patients. Hence, this piece will draw reference from
traditional healing practices, culture and pain, and religion and contraceptive use to shed light on
cultural competence to enable the provision of culturally safe care.
Traditional Healing Practices
Healthcare professionals are often faced with some difficulties when it comes to
providing care to the Aboriginal people. The challenges are partly due to the cultural distance
that exists between Aboriginal culture and mainstream culture concerning systems of health
belief. Traditional medicine practices are partly to blame for the disparities between mainstream
Australian culture and the Aboriginal by magnifying the challenges faced in the cross-cultural
healthcare delivery setting (Oliver, 2015).
Traditional medicine practices within the Torres Strait Islander and the Aboriginal
cultures in Australia goes far and beyond the world medical view. The traditional medicine
practices are bound by the belief that the body and mind are not separable and that prevention of

CULTURAL COMPETENCY IN NURSING 3
ill health calls for maintenance between physical and spiritual sides. Before colonization,
traditional medicine practices such as the use of bush medicines, traditional healers, and healing
songs were the primary form of health care. Notably, for the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait
Islanders, colonization is responsible for the two communities’ disconnection and removal from
their families and land (Dixit & Sambasivan, 2018). It has had lasting effects on their use of
traditional medicine and traditional practices.
The modern age practitioners of traditional medicine offer valuable knowledge that can be of
great help in the understanding of medical healing processes. Traditional healers are
knowledgeable and can make interpretations of symptoms before providing traditional medicine
treatments ("Key Thinkers Forum," 2016). Their medicinal knowledge is passed down from one
generation to the next. To a section of the Torres Strait and the Aboriginal populations, the
traditional medicine offers an alternative to the relatively high costs of modern medicine and
hospital stays ("Australian Indigenous Health Info," 2019). The traditional healers depend on
plants that grow in their locality. These plants are cheap options that play a crucial role in all
traditional medicine practices.
Whereas modern medicine is mostly dependent on general practitioners and registered
nurses as health care starting points, traditional medicine is dependent on traditional healers. The
healer is recognized by the community as a whole including place of residence. They are famous
for their competency to offer health care services using plant, mineral, and animal substances
based on cultural, social, and religious practices. Additionally, traditional medicine is holistic in
its approach based on personal experience, and everyday use whereas modern medicine is guided
by knowledge on medicine, codes of conduct, models of medical practices, guidelines and

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policies (Oliver, 2015). Modern medicine is also broad by offering a wide range of medical
services from general, preventive health care, and to more complex situations that may need
hospital care and specialists.
Varied perceptions tied to ill health causes are likely to affect compliance and
management and how an individual responds to illness. This is the case if healthcare
management efforts are based upon assumptions linked to modern culture. Nurses and other
health experts ought to make efforts to gain an understanding of patients’ culture, beliefs, and
practices (Repo, Vahlberg, Salminen, Papadopoulos, & Leino-Kilpi, 2017).
Difficulties often arise in medical interactions health professionals and the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders, especially when the professional’s version of practice is different
from the cultural experiences of the patient. It is therefore vital for nurses and other health
professionals to explore and consider a patient’s point of view. An understanding of a patient’s
unique value can greatly aid nurse’s interaction effectivity (Kim, Ryu, Lee, & Lee, 2015). There
is need for nurses to develop the ability to explore values, beliefs, and needs to build sound
patient-nurse relationships. Some of the aspects mentioned above of culture are embedded in
patients’ language of use. Therefore, it is imperative for health experts to broaden their
communication skills across cultures (Garneau & Pepin, 2015). The skills would also be handy
in building trustworthy relationships with the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aboriginal.
Culture and Pain
Culture directly relates to how individuals express pain. The social values and societal
upbringing almost directly influence how different communities’ express pain and its intensity,
duration, and nature. These factors are barely apparent to the common socio-psychological