Cultural Sensitivity in Nursing

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Why is delivering culturally competent nursing care important?

Culturally competent nursing care is important for two specific reasons. First, contemporary American society is now more culturally and ethnically diverse than it has ever been. That means more and more patients and other healthcare stakeholders are members of diverse cultures. Therefore, the healthcare professional who is only competent to deliver high-quality care to one predominant culture is less capable than ever of delivering the same quality of care to the rest of the patient population. The second principal reason that culturally competent nursing care is important is that nurses and other healthcare professionals have a fundamental obligation to provide care of equal quality to all of their patients. To the extent the patient and stakeholder population is culturally diverse, the professional practitioner who is not culturally competent is unable to deliver quality healthcare services to all members of society.

2. What can the nurse do to avoid cultural stereotyping?

Likewise, there are two principal ways that professional nurses and other healthcare workers can avoid cultural stereotyping. First, they can avoid cultural stereotyping simply by becoming aware of the issue in principle. Generally, the mere awareness of the issue and of its importance is likely to reduce any practitioner's tendency to succumb to cultural stereotyping. Second, nurses and other healthcare professionals can avoid cultural stereotyping by committing themselves to learning about different cultures and corresponding cultural sensibilities and expectations that are functions of cultural differences. In principle, professional practitioners who make that commitment tend to learn the most about different cultures and make the most conscientious effort to apply that knowledge in their everyday nursing responsibilities and practice.

Sources Consulted

Mixer, S.J. "Use of the culture care theory and ethnonursing method to discover how nursing faculty teach culture care." Contemporary Nurse, Vol. 28 (April 2008).

Taylor, C., Lillis, C., and LeMone, P. (2005). Fundamentals of Nursing: The Art and Science of Nursing Care. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins.