Literature Search Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay Paper

Self-knowledge and Understanding: Step in Achieving Cultural Competence
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Question One
Self-knowledge and understanding is a critical step in becoming culturally competent because, through it, nurses and healthcare professionals become aware of their background, cultural values, and biases. Once nurses are aware of their cultural background and biases towards people of different cultures, they can recognize the cultural differences and similarities of their patients. This is an important step towards developing cultural awareness (Cai, 2016). When healthcare professionals have sufficient self-knowledge and understanding, they are in a position to understand different cultural groups. As a result, they can develop interventions that are specifically focused on the health problems of diverse patients (Cai, 2016). Also, self-knowledge provides nurses with a basis towards becoming culturally competent because once they identify their cultural limitations, they can find ways of addressing those limitations.
The cultural self-assessment exercise has had an impact on my personal and professional values as they relate to diverse cultures. Through this exercise, I became more aware of my biases and attitudes towards people whose culture is different from mine. As a result, I am now working towards understanding other cultures by engaging people from different cultures and participating in activities that expose me to diverse cultures. I believe that this will positively impact my interactions with patients because as revealed by Power, et al. (2015), understanding the culture of diverse groups helps in improving the health of these groups. I will be more conscious and culturally sensitive to all my patients and this will help me build trusting relationships with them.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Cai, D. (2016). A Concept Analysis of Cultural Competence. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 1-6. /science/article/pii/S2352013216300795
Power, T., Virdun, C., Sherwood, J., Parker, N., Balen, J., Gray, J., et al. (2015). REM: A Collaborative Framework for Building Indigenous Cultural Competence. Journal if Transcultural Nursing, 1-8.
Question Two
When it comes to maternal and infant health, diverse cultures have different practices. The study by Asiodu, Waters, Dailey, and Lyndon (2017) examined breastfeeding practices among first-time African-American mothers and indicated that while breastfeeding is an important practice for both child and maternal health, most African-American mothers do not breastfeed their infants exclusively. The study examined some of the factors that influenced breastfeeding decisions among African-American mothers. Most of the participants in the study revealed that growing up, they never saw African-American women breastfeeding, a factor that was attributed to wet-nursing during slavery. However, they acknowledged the importance of breastfeeding and reported that having a social support system influences their decisions to breastfeed. Another factor that influenced their breastfeeding practices is access to breastfeeding resources. The study concluded that it is important to improve breastfeeding practices among African-American by developing culturally inclusive interventions.
This information impacts my nursing practice in three ways. First, it gives me a better understanding of why exclusive breastfeeding practices are not common among African-American women. Second, it provides a basis for developing interventions that can be targeted directly at this population to promote exclusive breastfeeding and reduce premature births and infant mortality. These interventions include providing African-American mothers with breastfeeding resources, including education on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding. Also, providing Africa-American mothers with culturally sensitive messages about breastfeeding is an intervention that I can incorporate into my nursing practice. Third, it encourages me to explore the social/ cultural factors that influence breastfeeding among other cultures as well so that I can be culturally competent.
Reference
Asiodu, I., Waters, C., Dailey, D., & Lyndon, A. (2017). Infant Feeding Decision-Making and the Infleunces of Social Support Persons among First-Time African American Mothers. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 21(4), 863-872. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10995-016-2167-x
Question Three
The study by Sot-Perez-de-Celis, Perez-Montessoro, Rojo-Castillo, & Chavarri-Guerra, (2018) explored the health information seeking practices of Mexican patients with cancer. The authors revealed that when it comes to seeking information about health issues, different populations have different practices due to economic, social, and cultural differences. The study revealed that health information- seeking practices among Mexicans were influenced by age as well as the gender of the patients. Older patients were less likely to seek information compared to younger patients. Also, female patients were less likely to seek information from the internet. The study revealed that the internet was the most common source of health-related information for Mexican, but healthcare practitioners remained the most trusted sources of information.
As a nurse, this information is important to my practice because it illuminates the various factors that influence how and whether Mexicans seek information about their health conditions. Access to information about a health condition is important and the information from the study reveals that most people seek information from the internet. This could be because of the ease of use and accessibility of the internet, but it points out to a communication gap between Mexicans and healthcare providers. Most of them seek information from the internet rather than healthcare providers, albeit being the most trusted source of information. Based on this information, I would focus more on building trust with my patients so that they can seek health-related information from me first. This will ensure that they have the right information and they share their concerns with me.
Reference
Sot-Perez-de-Celis, R., Perez-Montessoro, V., Rojo-Castillo, P., & Chavarri-Guerra, Y. (2018). Health-Related Infomation Seeking Behaviors and Preferences amon...