In pre-hospital care, every second counts. What if cultural beliefs play a big role in how patients respond to care? This is where cultural competence comes in. Understanding patient’s background is not just a routine, but vital in delivering effective care. From understanding client’s health beliefs to lessening language barriers issues, cultural competence designs the way healthcare teams tackle diagnosis, and treatment of clients. During pre-hospital care, cultural awareness, and respect for patient diversity play crucial roles in the quality of care given.
Why cultural competence?
Cultural competence is the ability to effectively relate with people from different historical backgrounds and understand their way of life (Nair et al. 2019). It is good for healthcare workers to be knowledgeable about the cultures of people in their society since they vastly affect their work. Based on the bachelor’s thesis by Maziwisa & Nampeera (2024), a healthcare worker’s failure to communicate with clients may lead to misunderstanding symptoms of clients if he lacks knowledge about their way of life. Maziwisa and Nampeera (2024) further clarify that good language skills play a big role during cultural competence since they enable better communication and free expression between paramedics and clients, hence easing proper diagnosis.
According to Khatri & Assefa (2022) communication barriers due to poor communication skills can lead to wrong diagnosis. Improved communication due to cultural competence ensures right diagnosis and a better prognosis thus reducing disparities (Perez-Stable & El-Toukhy 2018.). Cultural competence enables clients to get equitable care sensitive to beliefs, culture, and social needs (Swihart et al. 2023), through using interpreters and facial expression instead of judging them. Cultural competence helps in recognizing patients’ beliefs thus influencing willingness to undergo treatment. Some cultural practices influence attitude towards medical care for example moslems prefer getting care from same-sex staff (Firdous 2020), and Jehovah’s witnesses refrain from blood transfusion.
Solutions for common hardships in emergency care
Papps et al. (2024) recommends educating staff to handle diverse cultural groups through language support, cultural custom knowledge, and behaviours. Educating healthcare providers about basic and sign language spoken by minority groups in their society plus using interpreters for minority patients. Introducing intercultural nursing to improve and accommodate the quality of care offered (Degrie et al. 2017). Openly educating healthcare workers about conscious and unconscious biases plus how they affect clients.
FitzGerald & Hurst (2017) explains that biases based on culture and religion against diverse populations vastly influence the quality of care offered to low minority populations. Asking open-ended questions about a patient’s preference and beliefs to build rapport and ensure that the care plan aligns with their needs hence patient satisfaction and compliance.
In this ever-changing world of emergency care, cultural competence is an obligation of life. By embracing a culturally competent society, healthcare workers can ensure that all clients receive equitably quality care.
Authors
Josephine Nampeera is a graduate nursing student from LAB University of Applied Sciences.
Sini Hämäläinen works as a Senior Lecturer at LAB University of Applied Sciences.
References
Degrie, L., Gastmans, C., Mahieu, L., Dierckx de Casterlé, B. & Denier, Y. 2017. How do ethnic minority patients experience the intercultural care encounter in hospitals? A systematic review of qualitative research. BMC Med Ethics; p18. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28103849/
Firdous, T., Darwin, Z. & Hassan, SM. 2020. Muslim women’s experiences of maternity services in the UK: qualitative systematic review and thematic synthesis. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32070299/
FitzGerald, C. & Hurst, S..2017. Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: a systematic review. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28249596/
geralt. 2017. Altmann, G. Osaamista, kokea, käsi, suurennuslasi. Pixabay. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pixabay.com/fi/photos/osaamista-kokea-k%C3%A4si-suurennuslasi-2741773/
Khatri, RB. & Assefa, Y. 2022. Access to health services among culturally and linguistically diverse populations in the Australian universal health care system: issues and challenges. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35505307/
Maziwisa, M. & Nampeera, J. 2024. Cultural Competence in Healthcare and Pre-Hospital Care. Thesis. LAB University of Applied Sciences. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2024112730690
Nair, L. & Adetayo, O. 2019. Cultural Competence and Ethnic Diversity in Healthcare. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31333951/
Papps, E. & Ramsden, I., 2024. Cultural safety in nursing: the New Zealand experience. International Journal for Quality in Health Care 8(5):491-7 Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at DOI:10.1093/intqhc/8.5.491
Pérez-Stable, EJ. & El-Toukhy, S. 2018.Communicating with diverse patients: How patient and clinician factors affect disparities. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30146407/
Swihart, DL., Yarrarapu, S. & Martin, RL. 2023. Cultural Religious Competence in Clinical Practice. Cited 24 Nov 2024. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29630268/
