Culture and Health: Reflective Essay on Nursing Practice at University

This essay reflects on the author's learning experiences as a registered nurse, focusing on the critical reflection framework to integrate research, theory, and practice. The essay explores the importance of cultural competence in aged care, particularly in the context of a multicultural nation like Australia. It presents personal observations of interactions with older adults, including those with dementia and diverse cultural backgrounds. The author discusses instances where healthcare providers demonstrated both successful and unsuccessful cultural competence, highlighting the need for improved communication skills and a deeper understanding of patient needs. The essay emphasizes the importance of respecting patient beliefs, preferences, and values to ensure patient-centered care, and the author plans to develop cross-cultural skills and gain cultural knowledge for future practice. The conclusion stresses the significance of effective communication and cultural competence in providing high-quality care for older adults.

Running Head: CULTURE AND HEALTH
Culture and Health
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The purpose of the essay is to reflect on the aspect of my learning, that I have learned as
registered nurse. I am planning to use this knowledge in my nursing practice, wherever I will be
placed in future. The core of the critical refection process is the reflective practice, while
focusing on observation and documentation helps to generate evidence (Fook, 2016). The essay
uses critical reflection framework for the reflection on the personal experience in nursing
profession. To integrate research, theory and practice, it is the good opportunity to use critical
reflective process. Week 5 learning was focused on the culture, health, and care for older adults.
Reflection
Older adults aging involve the concept of social, cultural and historical processes.
Australia being multi cultural nation, different perspectives have emerged for the aging
population (Keddie, 2014). The health care providers should respect the beliefs, preferences and
values of the patient to ensure the patient centered care. Reflecting on my nursing experience in
aged care, I have witnessed a situation where a male older client was in confused state as a result
of dementia. The client has decreased mobility and was using wheelchair. Thus, he had increased
risk of fall. When I met this client he was restless on not able to find the lavatory. He was
agitated on frequent occasions and had troubled speaking. I saw him calling for help from a
nurse, who moved towards him slowly, She said, “How may I help you?”. The client was
stammering and all he could say was, “I nee...I need to go to thaa”. The nurse instead of trying to
identify what went wrong assigned him to another nurse and walked out. It could be the sign of
incontinence and other nurse soon initiated his assessment. I can relate this with another incident
where the fellow nurse demonstrated unsuccessful cultural competence, which is however

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essential in addressing the disparities in the health care (McClimens et al., 2014). She was
assigned to care for a Arab patient. The nurse was scared to attend him, as the religious beliefs of
the patient were completely different from the nurse. It was wrong to be judgemental as the 89-
year-old patient was in need of emotional support. The nurse was not passionate in being open or
flexible with the client. She was not curious to know about his culture. These are the good
opportunities to refine the communication skills and to create and purposefully create cultural
encounters (Hanson, 2014). I have noticed in on incident that a nurse would attend the aged
client only for medication, therapy and two meals in the dining room. When confronted she told
me that she finds nothing in common with the senior client and do not know how to talk. This
action demands for change in attitude else the old patients will feel disrespected.
I realised upon reflection that that there is a need of increased understanding of the
dementia care for my future practice. It will help me to identify and attend to people in confused
state and address their concern immediately. Older people demonstrating the signs of falls or
cognitive impairment are at the risk of functional decline. It is essential to prevent this by
identifying and responding to the needs (Di Napoli et al., 2013). For my future practice, I am
planning to develop the cross-cultural skills and gain cultural knowledge. According to
Bozorgzad et al. (2016), knowing the health beliefs of the patient by obtaining the cultural
knowledge will aid in gaining their worldview. For instance, Muslims prefers to maintain the
dietary standard by eating food that would be preferred by their family members. Muslim
patients tend to prefer carers of same sex or gender. Thus, without knowing the cross cultural
skills, it will be difficult to maintain the dignity of the patients.
I have realised that I need to interact more with the seniors, as they were once young too.
It will help me learn their ageistic view I would too become old one day and would not expect

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nurses to interact with me only for medication. If would be the old patient, I would expect patient
centered care. Therefore, I would like to change personal perspective towards the older adults.
Ageing people have variety of lived experiences such as grief, bereavement, trauma, separation
from children, financial insecurity, and burden of illness and others. They should be treated like
our own parents. They may suffer from loneliness and need a help to reconstruct their thoughts
(Bacsu et al., 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective communication is essential for older care. It is the fundamental
principle for high quality care. Lack of cultural competence, knowledge on the aged care
standards and poor perspective of aging may hamper the nursing practice. The reflective practice
was helpful in identifying areas of improvement supported with evidence.

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References
Bacsu, J. R., Jeffery, B., Johnson, S., Martz, D., Novik, N., & Abonyi, S. (2012). Healthy aging
in place: Supporting rural seniors’ health needs. Online Journal of Rural Nursing and
Health Care, 12(2), 77-87.
Bozorgzad, P., Negarandeh, R., Raiesifar, A., & Poortaghi, S. (2016). Cultural Safety: An
Evolutionary Concept Analysis. Holistic Nursing Practice, 30(1), 33.
Di Napoli, E. A., Breland, G. L., & Allen, R. S. (2013). Staff knowledge and perceptions of
sexuality and dementia of older adults in nursing homes. Journal of Aging and
Health, 25(7), 1087-1105.
Fook, J. (2016). Finding Fundamental Meaning through Critical Reflection. Practising
Spirituality: Reflections on Mean-making in Personal and Professional Contexts, 17.
Hanson, R. M. (2014). 'Is elderly care affected by nurse attitudes?'A systematic review. British
Journal of Nursing, 23(4).
Keddie, A. (2014). Australian multicultural policy: Social cohesion through a political
conception of autonomy. Journal of sociology, 50(4), 408-421.
McClimens, A., Brewster, J., & Lewis, R. (2014). Recognising and respecting patients’ cultural
diversity. Nursing Standard, 28(28), 45-52.