Comprehensive Report: Hispanic Culture, Health Beliefs, and Practices

This report provides an in-depth overview of Hispanic culture, focusing on health beliefs and practices. It examines traditional healing methods, the influence of Roman Catholicism, and the impact of cultural values on health perceptions. The report explores family structures, communication styles, space and time orientation, nutritional patterns, and pain responses. It also delves into childbirth and perinatal care, death and dying rituals, and the role of spirituality, religion, and faith, including prayer and meditation. The author reflects on gained knowledge, highlighting how understanding these cultural nuances can improve interactions with Hispanic individuals in professional settings, emphasizing the importance of empathy and culturally sensitive communication.

HISPANIC CULTURE
Name of the student
name of the university:

objective
To gain the knowledge of
Hispanic culture
To implement the knowledge in
practice in order to reduce
barriers.

Content:
Health Beliefs and Practices
Family patterns
Communication style
Space orientation and Time orientation
Nutritional Patterns
Pain Responses
Childbirth and periatal care
Death and Dying
Spirituality, religion, and faith (include holy days)
Prayer and meditation
 gaining knowledge
 implementation in practice

Hispanic culture
 Hispanic broadly refers to
the individuals who have a
broad link to the Spanish
language and Spain
(Richerson et al., 2016).
 They also refer as Latinos
and they comprise 16% of
the U.S population.
 They are a diverse ethnic
group containing different
cultures, races, and
nationalities.
Figure : Hispanic
culture
Source:(Richerson
et al., 2016).

Health Beliefs and
Practices
•Most of the Hispanic are roman catholic
which reflects in their health beliefs, illness
and daily life
•Believes in traditional healing procedures,
folk healing post-traumatic shock
attributed to the soul loss distinguish
between cold illness and hot illness. Hot
illness is Diabetes mellitus, bills whereas
cold illness Cancer
•,Colic, Pneumonia (Farkas, 2017).
Traditional practice:
•The traditional practice of medicine is
generally is done by herbs
•The outburst of anger is cured by herbs.
•Tea used for anxiety, stomach cramps
•Spice used as antispasmodic and for
upper respiratory infections (Meyers et al.,
Figure: herbs
Source: (Meyers
et al., 2017)

Family patterns
Patriarchal family structure
and follow the rigid
hierarchy.
The oldest male holds the
most power and males are
expected to the provider of
family
Females are expected to be
submissive to their husband
(Parrillo, 2015)
Generally nuclear family as a
most common and social
unit. However, any have
extended family
Figure: Family
patterns
Source:
(Parrillo, 2015)

Communication style
 Communication style is generaly
warm and respectful since they
interact at the spiritual and
emotional level and in Spanish.
Most of the Hispanic are roman
catholic which reflects in
communication (Neuliep, 2017)
The older person should be
addressed by the last name
Avoid direct eye contact.
 Greet with warmness such as a
warm hug.
 Hand movements are crucial for
communication in Hispanic culture
Figure; Hispanic
culture
Source: (Neuliep,
2017)

Space orientation and Time
orientation
Hispanic ‘s view about
space is different than
American cultures. For
example, Americans
usually initiate firm
handshakes,
Hispanic culture often
welcome warm hugs and
kiss on the cheeks.
They priorities relationship
more than time and takes
time to interact with
emotions and other
cultures (Ruiz et al., 2016).
Figure: Hispanic
greeting
Source: (Ruiz et al.,
2016).

Nutritional Patterns
Food plays a crucial role in
Hispanic culture.
In the culture, people refer
to foods by the degree of
hot or cold. regional
variations are
present: heat, spiciness,
pungency, and sweetness
(Di Benedetto, 2018).
 Breakfast is a light meal
and lunch is the larger part
of the meal. Dinner served
in later part of the evening
Figure: Hispanic foods
Source: (Ruiz et al.,
2016).

Pain Responses
Hispanic individuals are
more sensitive to pain than
Americans.
Since they are sensitive,
they have a higher rate of
disability due to pain
Hispanics considers pains
as emotional expressions
and they believe in pain
management through
herbs and traditional
healing procedure
(Richerson et al., 2016)
Figure: Pain
Responses
source:
(Richerson et
al., 2016)

Childbirth and perinatal
care
Childbirth is a critical thing for
Hispanic women since many of
them visit health care for the
first time during childbirth.
This is the opportunity where
they learned about the birth
controls (Thackeray et al.,
2018)
 Their decision of the birth
control is influenced by
Catholic
In prenatal care, lower birth
weight and during birth,
different herbs are used as the
healing of birth.
Figure: perinatal
care
source:
(Thackeray et al.,
2018)

death and dying
The Hispanic culture of death and
dying reflects their different
demographic values as well aa
religious faith.
Since the majority of the Hispanic is
roman catholic, they believe in
culture, they believe that souls are
eternal and still alive even after
bodies.
A Hispanic on the deathbed is given
the last rite by priest where a priest
hears about the last confession and
give blessings (Neuliep, 2017).
Funeral process include mass held in
the church where open emotions are
accepted by women and men are
expected to be strong.
Figure : death
and dying
Source:
(Neuliep, 2017)