Four Elements of Culture in Healthcare: An Application Study

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the four key elements of culture—health beliefs and practices, family patterns, communication styles, and death and dying practices—and their significant impact on healthcare delivery. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and addressing cultural diversity within healthcare settings to improve patient care, enhance communication between healthcare providers and patients, and minimize potential conflicts arising from cultural differences. The essay discusses how cultural variations influence patient behavior, treatment preferences, and end-of-life decisions, highlighting the need for healthcare professionals to be culturally sensitive and adaptable. By examining these elements, the essay underscores the importance of embracing cultural diversity to foster respect, improve service delivery, and ensure positive outcomes for both patients and healthcare providers. The essay concludes by advocating for cultural awareness and sensitivity within healthcare institutions to promote effective and equitable healthcare practices.

Running head: FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A
HEALTHCARE 1
FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE
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FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 2
Four elements of culture and their application in a diversified workplace
Introduction
Healthcare like any other organization or institution is mainly concerned with the welfare
of its clients, workers and even stakeholders. These people come from a different cultural
background and therefore, a great need and importance to have them embraced in order to have
better existence and good working environment for the workers and stakeholders so as to provide
quality services to the clients who seek their services. Cultural diversity in healthcare is one of
the key elements that should effectively be looked at because it has far-reaching negative effects
if ignored by the management like the death of patients. The essay will at length discuss the
techniques of addressing the concept of cultural diversity in the workplace more so in a health
care using four elements of culture which includes health beliefs and practices, the pattern of
family, the communication style and the last is death and dying practices.
Four elements of culture
Culture is learned and also transmitted to the other members of a society or even an
organization and institution. In any organization, there are people who come from a different
cultural background and therefore, a great need to come up with mechanisms on how to address
this challenge in order to avoid the cases of conflicts which in a healthcare organization may
result to poor services thus death or causing permanent disability to the patients. The following
are the four elements of culture and how they are used to address the cultural problem in a
workplace more in a healthcare organization or even an institution (Alden, et al, 2015, p. 1133).
Health beliefs and practices

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 3
Cultures have different beliefs concerning the causes of diseases and how these diseases
are spread from one person to another which it differs or it may be also similar to another
particular culture. Also, there are different beliefs from different cultures on how and where to
seek medical help in the event a member is sick and also the kind or type of medication and
treatment that a patient chooses (Khanna & Mir, 2018, p. 55). Moreover, culture affects how a
patient expresses sickness and pain which is different across cultures. As a result of these, the
healthcare institutions ought to understand the diversity in cultures so as to understand the kind
of treatment to be given to the patients that visit their health care (Banks, 2015). Culture have
their own ways of seeking medical treatment and this is different from the other cultures. As
result of these different beliefs and practices done by different cultures, the healthcare
organizations and institution ought to understand these cultural beliefs and practices done by
different so as to ensure that they have first respected their culture and offer them quality
services without violating their practices and beliefs which is so important to them (Marcoux,
Boivin, Arsenault, Toupin, & Youssef, 2015, p. 197). How a medical professional handle a
certain patient may be different from the way he or she handles the second clients (Beagan, 2018,
p. 132). This is because of the element of different beliefs and practices of how one ought to be
treated. This helps the healthcare personnel minimizes cases of conflict between him or her and
the client thus offering quality services and treatment (File, Valente & McLaws, 2018, p. 443).
Family patterns
Cultures have different beliefs and practices concerning families more so the issues of
gender. Some cultures do not allow men to offer any kind of treatment to the women and also
women offering any kind of treatment services to the men (Oakley, 2016). Moreover, different
cultures still attach belief that men as one of the gender are less concerned about their health

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 4
status and as a result affecting their health (Campos & Kim, 2017, p. 543). Women in most
cultures are believed to be more concerned about their health status which makes them
frequently visit the health facilities for checkup and treatment as compared to men who rarely
visit health cares for checkups or treatment. Additionally, some cultures attributes that women
have a limited reasoning and thinking capacity and reason as a result, they are not able to
effectively and clearly explain their issues and pain to the medical professionals thus the doctors
should give then sedatives for their pains which on the other men are given medication as they
are able to express themselves thus right medication is given (Morton, et al, 2017). As a result of
this diversity of cultures, medical practitioners need to understand these diversities so as to
evaluate how to offer the treatment services to the patients. Lack of these understanding may
result to conflict for example in a scenario whereby men are not treated by women and it
happens in a health care may result to a conflict between the patient and the doctor which affects
the delivery of services in the facility (Corin, E. (2017, p. 124)
Style of communication
Every person has very unique ways and styles of communication and a way they try to
interact with each other in a workplace. The communication style in a healthcare like any other
organization is very essential because it helps in the provision of quality patient care and also
improving the satisfaction of the customers. Different cultures have different ways of
communication (Kurtz, Draper & Silverman, 2016). This understanding that people and cultures
have different styles of communication helps the medical practitioners develop the right attitude,
awareness, skills, and knowledge on how to deal with different patients from a different cultural
background. This is because the doctors are always aware of avoiding biases when dealing with
patients from a different cultural background from his. Communication is one of the essential

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 5
element that most people in any organization should master because it determines their success
in terms of service delivery. If patients are offended due to lack of good communication which is
mainly caused by the inability of the medical practitioners to effectively understand the cultures
of their clients, may result to a misunderstanding between the two parties which leads to poor
treatment services and even loss of a customer (Lorié, Reinero, Phillips, Zhang & Riess, 2017, p.
419). There are individuals who are passive in their communication, others are aggressive,
passive-aggressive and also assertive. Accepting that societies have different communication
style helps in understanding and coming up with a persuasive and kind style of communication
which helps the patients and doctors understand each other and minimize the cases of negative
judgment during communication (Michaelson, Pickett, Vandemeer, Taylor, & Davison, 2016, p.
32891).
Death and dying practices
Culture is characterized by societal beliefs, norms, practices and also ritual. Each and
every society has different beliefs and practices attached to death. Societies express their grief
differently depending on the culture. Also, the cause of death is understood differently in
different cultures and therefore, medical practitioners ought to understand how to handle
different patients depending on their culture in the event of the death of their loved one in the
healthcare (Irish, Lundquist & Nelsen, 2014). For example, in Korea, they do cremation and they
use the ash to make colorful beads. Among the Chinese, they use white and not black color
during the mourning period. These cultural differences to great extent affect the productivity,
collaboration and also communication of an organization (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014, p.
99). In order to overcome challenges which are brought as a result difference in terms of culture
like death and dying practice can be overcame understanding and creating cultural awareness and

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 6
also cultural sensitivity which makes people embrace and appreciate other people's culture and
learn how to effectively live and interact with them all through thus reducing cases of conflicts
and differences when dealing with patients from different culture. For the success and
development of any organization or institution, it must learn on how to appreciate diversity and
inclusivity of cultures so as to achieve success in terms of service delivery (Meier, et al, 2016, p.
273).
Conclusion
In conclusion, therefore, culture is an essential element that determines the success of any
organization. People in an organization or even institution come from different cultures and as
result organization has to adapt mechanism on how to ensure that diversity of culture is highly
embraced in order to ensure that success is realized. In healthcare, doctors need to understand the
health practices and beliefs from different cultures. Also, they need to understand the family
pertains in terms of gender handling. Moreover, need to understand the communication styles
embraced by different cultural societies. Lastly, they ought to understand different cultures in
terms of death and dying practices. The purpose of the medical practitioners to be able to
understand and embrace this cultural diversity is because of minimizing cases of conflict and
misunderstanding between the doctors and the patients which result in poor quality services.
Also, embracing cultural diversity promotes respect between the two parties in health care. In
summation, cultural diversity is very key in a health care and therefore, it ought to be embraced
because it has more positive important towards service delivery and success of the facility.

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 7
Academically reliable websites for culture learning
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2010/08/11/the-best-sites-for-learning-about-the-worlds-different-
cultures/
http://www.openculture.com/

FOUR ELEMENTS OF CULTURE AND THEIR APPLICATION IN A HEALTHCARE 8
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