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Course: Fundamentals of Nursing�Topic: Transcultural Nursing

The Nurses International Community

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COPYRIGHT

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Student Learning Outcomes

Learners will be able to:

  • Describe the Health Belief Model and how it impacts Client Care.

  • Describe the significance of culture in the clients’ care.

  • Define Transcultural nursing.

  • Discuss how the nurse provides culturally appropriate care.

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Health Belief Model (HBM)

  • First developed in 1950’s by social psychologists working in the U.S. Public Health Services
    • To explain why so few people were participating in programs to prevent and detect disease
  • Initially developed to explain and predict health related behaviors
  • One of the most widely used cognitive model and health behavior theory, in:
    • Research study of people’s behavioral responses to health
    • Developing behavior change strategies for health promotion programs

National Cancer Institute, 2005

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Health Belief Model

HBM proposes that a person’s likelihood of adopting a health behavior depends on

  • Perceived Susceptibility
  • Perceived Severity
  • Perceived Benefits
  • Perceived Barriers
  • Cues to Action
  • Self-efficacy

National Cancer Institute, 2005

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Health Belief Model

Perceived Susceptibility

  • Defined as ‘Beliefs about the chances of getting a condition’
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on the level the client believes their risk is to getting an illness

Perceived Severity

  • Defined as ‘Beliefs about the seriousness of a condition and its consequences’
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on how severe or negatively consequential client believes the condition to be

National Cancer Institute, 2005

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Health Belief Model

Perceived Benefits

  • Defined as ‘Beliefs about the effectiveness of taking action to reduce risk or seriousness’
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on how effective the client believes the proposed action is in reducing threat to illness or disease.

Perceived Barriers

  • Defined as ‘Beliefs about the material and psychological costs of taking action’
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on how client interprets the obstacles to performing the recommended health action.

National Cancer Institute, 2005

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Health Belief Model

Cues to Action

  • Defined as Factors that activate “readiness to change”
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on stimulus provided to trigger acceptance of the recommended health action
  • Intensity of cues needed varies between individual

Self-efficacy

  • Defined as ‘Confidence in one’s ability to take action’
  • Change in client’s health behavior depends on the client’s perception of her/his competency to perform proposed health action.

National Cancer Institute, 2005

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Health Belief Model Implications to Nursing

  • Nurse has responsibility to:
    • Promote health
    • Prevent illness
    • Restore health
    • Alleviate suffering

  • HBM can be used as a guide by nurses to-
    • Understand ‘why’ of the client’s health behaviors
    • Identify client needs in respect to health promotion/prevention of illness/restoration of health/alleviation of suffering.
    • Develop effective strategies to help client adopt healthy behavior

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Critical Thinking Exercise

Tim has a history of heavy alcohol use and smoking, leading to a stroke at 59 years of age. He was hospitalized for two months, and except for less mobility in his left fingers, he recovered well. Since then he stopped smoking and drinking, and started eating healthy diet and doing morning exercises. Now he is 68 years old and he gets yearly colon cancer screenings. His father died of colon cancer, and his nephew Dave is 39 years old and lives close by. Dave is a chain smoker and drinker, and does not get yearly medical tests. Despite family members encouraging him to quit smoking and drinking and getting tested for colon cancer, he has not given up on those habits.

  • Use Health Belief Model to discuss differences between Tim and Dave regarding smoking and drinking habit.

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Cultural perspective plays a big role in shaping client’s health beliefs and behavior!

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Definitions of Culture

‘...the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.’

‘...shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them.’

Lederach, 1995 as cited in University of Minnesota, 2019

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Image by Heifer.org (2017). World Ark (p12-13). From https://media.heifer.org/world-ark/2017/World_Ark_2017_Summer.pdf

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Culture and Beliefs In Client Care

Components of culture-

  • Non-material culture: values, beliefs, symbols, and language

  • Material culture: Society’s physical objects like tools/technology, clothing, eating utensils, means of transportation

Sociology: Understanding and

changing the social world, 2010

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Culture and Beliefs In Client Care

  • There are variations between cultural groups regarding beliefs and behaviors related to-
    • Meaning of health, illness, and death
    • Causes of disease
    • How illness and pain are experienced and expressed
    • Decision making process to seek help from healthcare provider
    • Preference of the treatments

Canadian Paediatric Society, 2018

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Why should a nurse care about culture of another country?

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Nurse Should Care Because…..

  • Globalization/migration has increased the exposure of nurses to caring for people from various cultures around the world.

  • Every client has the right to culturally acceptable and appropriate care.

  • Often client’s cultural beliefs and behaviors and beliefs about health dictate their reception of health care services/information provided and their adherence to treatment.

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Culture and Beliefs in Client Care

  • Demonstrating awareness of client’s culture and beliefs promotes:
    • Trust and respect between care provider and clients
    • Acceptance of diagnoses and treatments by clients
    • Client’s adherence to treatment
    • Adoption of healthy behaviors by clients
    • Client’s willingness to seek health care in future

Lack of cultural relevance may discourage the client from seeking appropriate healthcare or making healthy decisions.

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Transcultural Nursing

Dr. Madeleine M. Leininger, founder of the theory ‘Transcultural Nursing’, defines the topic as:

“…..a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human care (caring) differences and similarities of the beliefs, values, and patterned lifeways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people."

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Transcultural Nursing: Cultural Competence

  • KNOWLEDGE:
    • Acquire knowledge base of cultures of client and community, especially in relation to healthcare practices and beliefs.
  • ATTITUDE:
    • Become aware of the rules of interactions within cultures that will help better understand attitudes of the client;
    • Become aware of one’s own attitude, biases and prejudices
  • SKILLS:
    • Learn new communication skills to simplify language for any client, regardless of primary language
    • Learn to adapt to new and different situations in flexible way

Murphy, K., 2011

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Providing Culturally Competent care

  • Take time to build awareness of client culture and preferences

  • Listen to the client and communicate effectively

  • Demonstrate willingness to learn about culture from client

  • Remain aware that not everyone with the same cultural background will have the same needs and preferences

  • Encourage and empower client’s to express their cultural needs

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Critical Thinking Exercise

Imagine you are the client admitted to hospital. What would you want the nurses/healthcare providers to do or say to facilitate your cultural preferences?

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Remember

Client has right to culturally appropriate care!

&

Nurse ensures that through transcultural nursing practice!

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References:

  • Canadian Paediatric Society, Caring for Kids New to Canada. (2018, March). How culture influences health. Retrieved on September 3, 2021 from https://www.kidsnewtocanada.ca/culture/influence

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References:

  • University of Minnesota, The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition[CARLA]. (2019). What is Culture? https://carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html

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Contact info: info@nursesinternational.org

© 2013-2026 Nurses International (NI) and the Academic Network. All rights reserved.