Question

*note( it’s a community nutrition class)

1)How can a health educator or registered dietitian become more culturally competent?

2)Describe an instance where you have encountered cultural differences in the health care setting (or if not health care another setting)? How could the situation have been best resolved?

3)With more and more people needing access to health care, how will cultural competency come into play?

Answer 1

1) The first step in becoming culturally competent is by exploring one's own cultural beliefs & this is what is necessary for the health educator or registered dietician to become culturally competent.

2) Culture: "A totality of socially transmitted behavioral

patterns, beliefs, values, customs, lifeways, arts, and all other products of human work and thought characteristics of a population of people that guide their worldview and decision making".

Cultural diversity- The differences among people, which may or may not be visible.

--> Cultural Differences with an Impact on Health Care:

* Refusal to give blood or get blood transfusions.
* Refusal to donate or receive organ transplants.
* Refusal to place aging parents into nursing home.
* Fertility Control.
* Mental illnesses.

• So taking an example of fertility control, Community who avoid going for sterility ( tubectomy or vasectomy) instead they say that It's God's wish so we can resolve this by health education about family planning by calendar method or contraceptive use- influencing their attitude to maintain fertility control rather going in for an operative procedure.

• So, Health care providers must recognize, respect and integrate patients' cultural beliefs and practices into health prescriptions to eliminate or mitigate health disparities and provide patient satisfaction.

• Nurses must develop a cultural sensitivity so the nurse can be the bridge between the patient and the healthcare system.

3) As more and more people need access to health care, culture competency plays a role where it has barriers to access to the health care:

- Language and health literacy, availability, accessibility, affordability, appropriateness, accountability, adaptability, awareness, attitudes, acceptability, approachability, alternative practices, additional services.

So inspite of Access to health care, they get stuck due to these obstacles so eliminating these will keep these hindrance away from their path to access health care.