CHAPTER 5 Cultural Dimensions
Differences among groups and individuals are a recognized fact. Every individual incorporates race, culture, ethnic background, age, socioeconomic and educational levels, and gender identification and orientation into who he or she is and how he or she views the world. These differences may be visible and invisible. Awareness of these influences does not ensure separation from them, because they are a part of daily interactions and interpretations. Health care professionals working within a Western medical paradigm frequently believe that empirical, science-based health care is superior to, or at least preferred to, other modalities such as folk medicine practices, which are considered less advanced. Health care facilities are often hard pressed to meet patients’ dietary proscriptions, much less differing paradigms for defining health care. Providing interpreters does not ensure that a facility exhibits cultural competence. In fact, consistent cultural competence may be impossible to obtain.1 What is possible, for individual providers and the workplace environment, is an awareness and understanding of difference. It is possible to have respect for the values and beliefs of all individuals as an essential component of their well-being and the ability to accept what is desired for the patient in the Western worldview in a context that is congruent with the world that patients will return to when they leave the emergency department. This awareness and respect can assist in making interventions more likely to be culturally congruent and also may increase the likelihood that the immediate treatment plan and continuing care will be followed after discharge.
II. POSITION STATEMENTS
B. Emergency Nurses Association
1. Position statement: “Diversity in Emergency Care”
2. Original Emergency Nurses Association Diversity Task Force (1988)
| Areas | Definitions |
|---|---|
| Age | A period of existence |
| Class | A group of persons who share the same attributes, such as social rank or socioeconomic status, and adhere to traditional roles and principles |
| Culture | Patterns of behavior and thinking that persons living in social groups learn, create, and share |
| Ethnicity | A conscious choice regarding identify based on beliefs, values, practices, and loyalty to a certain group or groups |
| Gender | Self-described identity as male or female |
| Nationality | Belonging to a particular nation by birth, family origin, or naturalization |
| Race | The biologic variation in humankind, scientifically defined in three categories: mongoloid, negroid, and caucasoid |
| Religion | Organized or unorganized belief systems |
| Sexual orientation | One’s lifestyle identity based |
| Marginalized status | Individual seen as possessing relatively little social power |
From Ruiz-Contreras, A. (2005). Diversity. In Sheehy’s (6th ed., p. 15). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier manual of and Emergency Nurses Association.
