Communication is an essential tool within the nursing practice. Patients within the nursing practice come from different cultural backgrounds, and this necessitates the need for the nursing to have an understanding of the various culture to be able to treat all the patients according to their cultural expectations. This assignment discusses the issues that surround the agenda of transcultural communication within the nursing sector.
One of the critical issues in the transcultural communication is ethnocentrism. This is mainly described as having a belief in individual culture. Based on ethnocentrism, people view other peoples ways of life as being usual and excellent when compared to their own. Ethnocentrism in the health care system avoided by eliminated by preventing those practices that are similar to health practices in the western culture. The American health care environment is unique and different from that of other systems. The idea of westernization is discouraged from another hospital setting by creating a local community health care system that resembles the belief of the local community. In this kind of context, the local language of the society around the hospital is encouraged to achieve effective communication. Moreover, this makes the culture to identify with the healthcare in their locality thus changing the perspective on the ethnocentrism around their hospitals (Munoz, & Luckmann, 2004).
Barriers to effective communication in health care system
Language Barrier
Health Literacy barriers
Cultural barriers
Barriers of significance to the healthcare system
Cultural barriers form part of one of the most significant obstacles in the healthcare system. In situations where the nurses do not understand the various cultures that visit the hospital, it becomes challenging to take care of the patient who may have different beliefs regarding medication and the caregiving practice. The difference in culture cause misunderstanding since issues would be understood differently based on the culture of the patient or nurse. The cultural barrier is avoided through efforts that are aimed at empowering the nursing staff with knowledge of the cultural communities that exist around the hospital or that could visit the hospital. The information about the different cultures makes it possible to understand how to deal with every patient that visit the hospital. In fact, different nurses could be trained to specialize in knowledge of different cultures to make easy to operate in the hospital (Munoz, & Luckmann, 2004).
Health literacy barrier is another barrier to effective communication that occurs within the nursing care practice. This restriction arises mainly while dealing with the patients who do not know the terms that are used in the medical field. The communication becomes a problem due to the unfamiliarity with these words. This barrier necessitates the need to have a translation of the language used while dealing with the patients. Health literacy is not natural to breach since not everyone in the population can have access to the information that is relevant to their understanding of the medical terms. The hospital can, however, organize for the program for educating the general population on the critical issues around the healthcare system that are of great significance to the understanding between the patients and the nursing staff (Munoz, & Luckmann, 2004).
In conclusion, transcultural communication is an essential issue in the medical field especially while dealing with the patients. It is vital to understand all the problems that surround the transcultural setting of the hospital to be able to offer the best services to the patient who visit the hospital.
References
Munoz, C., & Luckmann, J. (2004). Transcultural communication in nursing. Nelson Education.
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