Question

In this written assignment, select one cultural factor such as health beliefs, language, perception of time, environment control, etc. (see textbook reading) and apply it to a selected ethnic group. The paper will include the following:

One impact on medication preparation. Explain.

Two impacts on medication administration. Explain.

Two potential adverse reactions. Explain with rationale.

One possible issue in adherence to medication regimen. Explain how this can be overcome.

The paper should be no more than 3 pages. Use APA Editorial Format for all citations and references used.

Submit your completed assignment by following the directions linked below. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates.

Save your assignment as a Microsoft Word document. (Mac users, please remember to append the ".docx" extension to the filename.) The name of the file should be your first initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the name of the assignment, and an underscore and the date. An example is shown below:

Jstudent_exampleproblem_101504

Answer 1

Effect of language barrier on medication regimen

Robert Vincent (2018)

Assistant Professor in osmania unversity

Abstract:

Language that serves as the major tool for communication, is debarred when we deal with people having language barriers. It has been evidenced by researchs that the language barrier has direct impact on the treatment or medication regimen. Their understanding about the disease process and medications given is crucial. This will foster a better patient outcome avoid incidences of setinal events.

Introduction

The language barriers has being always a great problem in the healthcare setting where the healthcare provider have to manage patients belonging to various cultural diversities. The study is conducted in the King abdul Aziz hospital Taif where the patients tend to speak Arabic with little or no knowledge about English. The staffs who are delivering services are of different nationalities mainly Saudis, Philipinos, Sudanese and Indians. The Saudis and Sudanese faced less problem in the process of medication administeratio than the staff of other nationality as there is no language barrier for them.

The acceptance and adherence of the patients towards the medication regimen given by the staffs of different language than theirs was found to be poor. Neither the patients would understand their interventions nor the staff is able to communicate effectively to them. This problem of language barriers led to certain incidences of errors in many areas of medication including preparation, administering. The impact of the language barrier on preparation, administration is explained below:

1. Impact on medication preparation: The language often effects the preparation of medication especially in pharmacy setting resulting in preparation of wrong medication. This is seen when patients with language barriers meets the pharmacist who is not aware of the language or between the nurse and pharmacist. For example: An egyptian patient and a Pakistani patient reaches to the pharmacy counter with the presciption. Both the patients have identical name with no change in their four names. They drop the presciption at the counter together. When the pharmacist comes, he notices the identical names. Anyway he prepared the medication for both patients. During delivering medication, he counter checks with them to identify the correct patient with the doctors name. For every question, both answered yes by nodding their head. Later when the nurse checks the medication, it was found to have wrong medication.
2. Impact on medication administration :

• Before administering certain medication, its important to know whether patient has taken any thing orally or else it will result in adverse effect of the drug or may effect the acitivity of drug in the body. For example antacids like ranitidine, omeprazole, insulin. The language barrier often leads to improper assessment of the patient nutritional status and may result in harm effects. For example: An nurse ask a patient if he have food available with him to be taken immediately after insulin is given, the patient who speaks only french says nothing is available by nodding his head up and down. The nurse interprets it to be a yes and administers insulin. It results in hypoglycemia for the patient.
• The other impact of language barrier is error in identifying indication of the medication. For example: The Philipino nurse asks a Bangladeshi patient if he has severe pain to inject a PRN analgesic during the routine medication time. The patient would understands only Hindi nodded his head side by side. The philipino nurse understood his action to be yes. She plans to administer Morphine injection intravenously. After administration of the drug patient's respiratory rate becomes shallow and he shows signs of respiratory depression. Thus, the language barriers made the nurse to misinterpret the need for drug.

3. Potential Adverse effects:

• There are many medications which requires a medical history before administration. One of it is allergy history for any medication. Inability to identify the allergic status of the patient may result in administering medications which may precipate life threathening hypersensitive reactions and shock. For example: Administration of dye before CT scan needs to identify patients allergy to fish, seafoods or iodine.The language barrier may result in improper identification of the allergy status. Therefore its important that an interpreter should be available who can take the allergy history for you and also prior testing of the drug with a skin test will prevent the allergic reaction.
• Bleeding: There are certain medications which needs appropriate history of coagulation profile of the patient or presence of any bleeding disorders like anticoagulants and antiplatelets. The failure of the physician due to language barrier, to collect this information will result in massive bleeding. For example: Patient on treatment with pulmonary embolism is on regular anticoagulants. Consider the patient develops renal failure and needs dialysis, the physician prescribes dialysis with heparin. This will result in changes in the coagulation profile and induce bleeding in the various site in the body. In the above case, the dialysis should be heparin free and bleeding precautions should be taken during the procedure. Its also important to check the patients coagulation profile prior to administration of anticoagulants.

References:

1. Rand A.David,M.D and Michelle Rhee, B.A, " The impact of language as a Barrier to effective Health Care in an Undeserved Urban Hispanic Community" OCt 1998, Vol: 65: 393-397.
2. Jennifer Decker Arevalo, " Language barrier increased risk for adverse events and effects." AMN healthcare.