Importance of Cultural Competence in Nursing Practice: A Reflection

This essay explores the critical role of cultural competence in nursing, emphasizing its impact on patient care, satisfaction, and overall healthcare outcomes. The author reflects on personal experiences, particularly encounters with diverse cultures in Australia, highlighting the challenges and importance of understanding and respecting different cultural backgrounds. The essay discusses the need for cultural sensitivity, communication skills, and the development of cultural consultancy committees to address healthcare disparities. It concludes by underscoring the significance of cultural awareness training for nurses to provide equitable and high-quality care, referencing relevant literature and research on transcultural nursing practices and the development of cultural competence within healthcare settings.

Nursing cultural studies

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
Cultural competence is vital as it assist nurses to provide quality services to the patients,
enhances patient's satisfaction and care of the patients. Health sector will suffer with great loss
and limit services without cultural competence. Nurses need to understand and respect patient's
culture and religious which create conflict for treatments plan and strategies. practising cultural
sensitivity is vital for establishing patient relationship. This essay will cover self reflection
transcultural nursing relates to professional practices.
MAIN BODY
Since childhood, I have been always conscious of people are of different types. I fond of
knowing different culture and community. I truly respect every individual come from different
culture and community. I am an Asian and I had to go Australia to serve as a nurse. I needed to
face many difficulties due to cultural differences among Asia and Australia. I like travelling to
new places. Travelling across different nation made me realise the existence of various races. I
used to meet people with different races and colour. I reached Australia, I realised people are
rather friendly and casual. I observed that Australian were more expressive and openly
communicate about their feelings, opinion and thoughts. I was unfamiliar with Australian
language and culture. I started questioning myself that how I am going to communicate with
them and will they answer me back (Crussell, & Murphy, 2019). As I am Asian, I was
comparatively reserved. I was finding for the suitable language to communicate with them. I
preferred to ignore them because of lack of communication skills and confidence. There were a
number of nurses dealing with Torres strait islander people. There was a day when majority of
my colleagues required to go home early. Then, I had to take care of the patients. Patients used to
ring the bell when they need water or something else as they had nothing on their beside table. I
remember, one day, a patient asked for water and reached him with low quite voice. He used to
speak in English. He was very out spoken and started telling about his culture and family.
Talking for a while made me friendly with him. I never thought that he will speak in English. I
was thinking he would speak in his native language and I would not able to understand him. I
asked him about his native land. He answered me back that he was from Punmu (Kang, Song,
& Noh, 2021). I figured out where it was located as I had met the country in my geographical
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lessons, during my school days. I did not about his country. I met many more dark patients
speaking different languages. Meeting with them, made me realised that I am not prepared about
different cultures and religions. It has been analysed, although cultural nursing practices has been
increasing but there is still need of proper training. One of my patient used to bow his head and
did not understand it's a sign of respect. Then I realised I need to work on it (Davis, Badr &
Doumit, 2022).
After analysing the scenario, I realised, there is a requirement for cultural consultancy
committee. All the members of the committee need to elect a representative for ethnic groups
who belongs to island. This committee need to be build up with the purpose of discussing health
related issues of this group. Policies need to be framed and implemented regarding the
communication issues and many other issues faced whenever patient come from the group. There
is requirement of appropriate training of nurses to develop their communication skills in order to
build patient relationship with this group. Stimulating cultural awareness among health care
professionals, is vital to bring health equity. We need to work on language and knowledge of
different cultures which could be a strong barrier. Generalisation and perception are also
observed as a strong barrier (Crussell & Murphy2019).
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CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it has been concluded that nursing cultural awareness is very
important to provide quality services to the patients. Culturally experienced nurses ensure patient
satisfaction and improve their health outcome. It has been observed that culture is one of the
most determine components in healthcare preferences. Cultural practices assist nurses to step out
of their own perception and understand specific needs of every individual patient belonging to
different ethnic group. Healthcare sector need to build committee for aboriginal people of
Australia to meet their health requirements in order to provide quality care. Studies found that
researchers are developing and designing training for nurses with the purpose to bring cultural
awareness.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Crussell, J., & Murphy, R. (2019). Death, dying and cultural practices within palliative and end-
of-life care. Introduction to Nursing for First Year Students, 205.
Davis, B., Badr, L. K., & Doumit, R. (2022). Health‐promoting behaviors among American and
Lebanese nursing students. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 19(1), 73-80.
Kang, J., Song, J., & Noh, W. (2021). Impact of nurses' compassion competence and
transcultural self-efficacy on their global health nursing competency. Applied Nursing
Research, 60, 151453.
Mazanec, P., Verga, S., Foley, H., & Mehta, A. K. (2019). The need for cultural inclusivity in
global palliative nursing: caring for selected underserved populations in the United
States. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 21(6), E1-E8.
Peet, J., Theobald, K. A., & Douglas, C. (2022). Building safety cultures at the frontline: An
emancipatory Practice Development approach for strengthening nursing surveillance on an
acute care ward. Journal of clinical nursing, 31(5-6), 642-656.
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