Cultural Sensitivity and Cultural Competence
Owing to the rising instances of diversity, there have been developments on the need for cultural sensitivity and cultural competency among the nurses and the healthcare practitioners in general. Cultural sensitivity in healthcare revolves around the deliberate attempt by the nurse to improve their ability to provide patient-centric care through reflecting on how the patients’ values, cultures, and beliefs influence the health outcomes (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Cultural sensitivity is measured in the nurse’s ability to understand, listen, respect the needs, values, ethnocultural beliefs, and opinions of the patient based on the cultural dictates in a bid to meet desired healthcare outcomes. Therefore, in cultural sensitivity, the nurse integrates the cultural elements that the patient holds close to the care plan in a bid to meet the specific health goals of the patient (Yilmaz et al., 2017). A classic example would be taking into account the religious beliefs and the role it plays on the well-being of the patient. The nurse is expected to formulate a care plan that would seamlessly integrate the aspects of religion in the care plan.
Cultural competence in nursing is the ability of the healthcare providers to deliver health services that aligns with the cultural, linguistic, and social needs of the patients (Harkess & Kaddoura, 2016). In this regard, the nurse is expected to understand the diverse cultural beliefs of the patients and promptly align the healthcare interventions to the learned different cultural elements. Cultural practices often influence the care plan and health outcomes. Such instances point out why practical nursing and cultural competence seamlessly integrate (Harkess & Kaddoura, 2016). For example, an individual nurse is expected to learn diverse languages to help in communicating with the patient to reduce the unnecessary communication barriers, and such fete defines what a cultural competence entails.
As evident, in both cultural competence and cultural sensitivity, the ultimate goal of the nurses is to provide a holistic care plan that integrates cultural aspects and other factors that result in diversity among the patients. Both elements are also deliberate and require individual inputs to be effectively realized. However, the difference arises in the magnitude of the involvement of the nurses. Whereas cultural sensitivity needs the nurse to be conversant with the diverse issues, cultural competence revolves around showing one is well acquainted with the cultural elements that lead to an improved care plan.