Cultural Competence Research

Cultural competence is defined as the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with persons from cultures and or belief systems different from your own. When it comes to an intervention, cultural competence refers to understanding the patients culture and adapting approaches to health care to that specific culture. Cultural competency directly impacts the quality of care and dictates how care is delivered and received. Healthcare providers who have learned to be culturally competent engage in assistive supportive and facilitative care that is tailored to an individuals or groups cultural values and beliefs to provide value to the level of healthcare provided (Dawn Lehman, 2016). Cultural competence is a knowledge set of skills that increases …show more content…
Cultural knowledge is the first step and it is the process of learning about the views of other cultures worldwide. Cultural knowledge can by gained through reading, attending workshops , watching presentations, and through other outlets that give insight into the ways of cultures outside of one’s own (Contento, 2007). Taking the time to build cultural knowledge will allow the provider to learn more about the habits and beliefs of various ethnic groups. This knowledge, cannot simply be gained from books and presentations alone, providers must also be willing to make personal encounters so not to generalize the book knowledge which could lead to stereotyping. For nutritionists and dieticians that means learning multicultural cuisine to be better prepared to not only implement nutrition interventions but to be able to better diagnosis clients. In my opinion, learning what foods a certain culture traditionally consumes in conjunction to whether or not the clients have a more modern or western approach to living can aid in the intervention processes and move things along more quickly decreasing the risks for a …show more content…
Cultural skill refers to healthcare providers learning culturally sensitive assessments and interventions. Cultural skills like language even if you only know greetings and simple phrases such as ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’, projects a level of respect for the patient and may help them to be more open and forthcoming with their personal information such as medical history (Young, 2011). Cross cultural encounters aid in competency to great extent. It is beneficial for providers to engage with persons of unlike cultures in order to better understand the proper traits and characteristics that accompany different cultures. If the provider is not truly interested in gaining competence through encounter they may not come across as genuine, but disrespectful when dealing with cross cultural patients (Holben,

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