Cultural Competence

HIV has affected people all across the world. HIV comes with physical and mental symptoms. The body symptoms include skin flaking off, being dry, skin peeling off (Saliba 23) , fingernails falling off (32), and weight loss (14). Mentally it is hard to sleep, people become weak, and are tired all the time (23). People all across the world are infected with this disease, and the problem with this is the fact that most do not even know they have it. The most people who are infected each year are African Americans, gays, or bisexuals. 10,315 African Americans were infected in 2015. The U.S.A. has estimated about 1.1 million are infected with the disease. Equally to about 12,333 deaths happened in 2014 from AIDS related diseases, and 6,721 deaths from AIDS directly. Although there are a large amount of people getting infected, on the other hand eighteen percent of the population with HIV is declining since 2008-2014 (“U.S. Statistics”). In the world about 33.2 million people worldwide have HIV, with 22.5 million people in sub Saharan Africa are living with this condition, one out of nine people who live in South America have HIV or AIDS (Saliba 8).

Cultural competence is the ability to interact well with people of different cultural backgrounds (Rundle, 2002). It provides the best ways of meeting the needs of diverse patient population which is always on the increase, as well as ways of effectively advocating for them. This means that cultural competence has the benefit of enabling nurses to deliver services that respect and effectively respond to health beliefs and practice needs of diverse patients. Through the process of globalization, nurses are moving to places of nursing shortage to offer their knowledge and skills beyond their home

Cultural competence in nursing is imperative for effective patient care. A nurse must know his or her own values and beliefs as well as knowing about a patient cultural practices in relation to healthcare. Cultural competence is defined by some as: “the learned, shared and transmitted values, beliefs, norms and lifeways of a particular group that guides their thinking, decisions and actions.” Also it is noted that an important change to this definition is “the recognition of the dynamic,

I have learned that it is important that educators  and health providers be trained on cultural competency to understand the population they are serving. Marks, Sims, and Osher (King, Sims, & Osher, n.d.) define cultural competency  as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross–cultural situations" ( as cited in Cross et al., 1989; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Health providers and educators should investigate demographic patterns or trends in the place where they live and work. This brings awareness of the types of cultures that they might come across when they are working with people. Organizations should integrate and implement policies that promote the value of  diversity, self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve (Georgetown  University, 2004). Georgetown University (2004) also stresses that culture competency grows gradually and is always open for improvement.

Cultural competence can be defined as using the ability of one’s awareness, attitude, knowledge and skill to effectively interact with a patient’s many cultural differences. Madeline Leininger, a pioneer on transcultural nursing describes it this way; “a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human-care differences and similarities of the beliefs, values and patterned lifeways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people” (Barker, 2009, p. 498). The importance of cultural diversity in healthcare allows for the delivery of appropriate cultural autonomy. Showing respect for others will lead to trust between nurse and

Cultural Competence is important for many reasons. First, it can help develop culturally sensitive practices which can in turn help reduce barriers that affect treatment in health care settings. Second, it can help build understanding, which is critical in competence, in order wards knowing whom the person

Cultural competency is the capacity of people or services to include ethnic/cultural considerations into all aspects of their work related to health promotion, disease prevention and other and other healthcare interventions (Cultural competence is important for several reasons, (Purnell, 2008a).First, it can contribute in the development of culturally sensitive practices which can reduce barriers that effect treatment in healthcare settings. Second, it can promote understanding, which is detrimental in cultural competence assessment, to know whom, the individuals known as the primary care provider and whom they view as the primary healer, can attribute to the promotion of trust and increase the person’s interest in participating

As a disease, HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a blood-borne virus that is transmitted from person to person via sexual intercourse, mother to child, or intravenous drug paraphernalia. The virus itself causes, usually over a period of time, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. AIDS actually targets the immune system and causes an immunosuppression which makes people who have the virus more susceptible to cancers and infections. This is the most unique feature of the HIV/AIDS virus and is the most deadly since its implications are destructive if not properly treated (Moore 51). The significance of this disease is one that began in the 1980’s and initially was thought to be a virus only found within homosexual communities and was even originally called Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Virus. However, in 1981, it was found that the virus was spreading beyond the gay community when Blacks accounted for 25% of the HIV/AIDs population and a trend began where Blacks continued to contract HIV significantly more than

Campinha- Bacote and colleagues describes the components for cultural competence in healthcare. These includes cultural ; a) knowledge, b) awareness, c) skills, d) encounter and e) desire. Cultural awareness refers to self-examination as well as in-depth exploration of an individual cultural as well as professional background. I am able to explore my own cultural healthcare values and beliefs. This is because understanding another person's does not guarantee that one will become cultural competent. I am now able to use the cultural awareness assessment to assess my personal level of cultural awareness, and to get an insight on the understanding of my cultural values and beliefs

Cultural competent? What is the big deal? “The term cultural competence is used to describe a set of skills, values and principles that acknowledge, respect and work towards optimal interactions between the individual and the various cultural and ethnic groups that an individual might come in contact with” (HumanServicesEDU, para. 1). Being able to understand and effectively understand other cultures than your own, can make a huge difference in the patient’s treatment and how well the case manager can do his or her job.

Cultural Competence Cultural competence has big impact on today’s society. Health care institutions need to be able to provide proper care to every patient. Cultural competence is about learning about different ethnic backgrounds. Everyone feels the need get social support in a health environment, especially here in the U.S.

Cultural competence is the act of being respectful and responsive to the beliefs and health care practices of differing cultures. As someone entering the medical field, having a better understanding of different cultures is crucial to ensure that my interactions with others are not only respectful but are able to succeed in cross-cultural communication. For my interview, I chose to interview a friend of mine that is from a Hispanic background with English as her second language differing from me in that I come from an all-white family who all consider English as their first language. This interview provided me with the opportunity to look into what it is like to receive healthcare as seen by someone from a different culture as well as what

Cultural diversity has different meaning to each and every one. Some of us considering cultural diversity to be acquired where for the others it’s a skill that they have to learn. It’s very important that the health care providers are knowledgeable and sensitive to cultural differences because they are the ones to deal with the patients of different background on a daily basis. Being cultural savvy will help them to give the best patient care. For that reason, health care workers must be especially aware that addressing cultural diversity goes above the values, beliefs, practices and customs. An outstanding medical professional has a good manner and makes patients feel comfortable and at ease during exams and treatments. Cultural knowledge is the skill to respond appropriately to people of different cultures, ages, races, religions, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnicities, and embrace on the way that will allow a person to feel respected and valued. The article "Diversity & Cultural Competency in Health Care Settings" discusses diversity in health care environment, "A health care professional who has learned cultural competence engages in assistive, supportive, facilitative, or enabling acts that are tailor-made to fit with individual, group, or institutional, cultural values, beliefs, and life ways in order to provide quality health care. In other words, they demonstrate the attitudes and behaviors that enable them to effectively work with individuals with diverse

Health is defined a state of wellbeing which is equally viewed by many different cultures. However, the definition of wellbeing is seen differently among cultures, in relationship to their beliefs and values. (DeNisco & Barker, 2015). Cultural care in nursing is a very important part of nursing care, whether the nurse is a bedside RN or a practicing primary care NP. There are many theories in nursing related to cultural care. Most encompass the need for nurses to take into consideration the cultural caring behaviors and values of individuals and families to provide culturally competent nursing care.

HIV is global pandemic stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, weakens the immune system by destroying the important cells in our body that fights against disease and infection. Our immune system is able to clear out most of the viruses from our body, but once you have HIV , you have it for lifelong. HIV can hide in our body cells for long time and it can attack the T cells and CD4 cells, a key part of our immune system to fight infections and diseases. Overtime, the HIV may attack so many of CD4 cells and our body is no more able to fight against infections. When this happens, HIV can lead to AIDS, the final stage of HIV infection. HIV can be transmitted through sexual contact, injection or drug use, pregnancy, breast feeding, occupational exposure, and rarely through blood transfusion and organ