Answer these questions:
Question 1: Kreuter et al. (2004) identify 4 ways to help ensure a message is culturally appropriate (peripheral, evidential, linguistic, sociocultural). Describe how a health message you have encountered achieved (or failed to achieve) two of these approaches.
Question 2: What suggestions that the Brooks et al. (2019) give clinicians for practicing CSC stand out to you most? Do you have any other recommendations for clinicians or public health professionals to practice culturally sensitive communication, based on your own experiences within your community? The suggestion that stood out to me was that clinicians should encourage patients to speak first in a healthcare setting. I had never heard this suggested before, and think it is a great idea to help ensure that the patient’s views on a health situation are heard before a clinician makes recommendations.
Reply to this discussion post below:
Thank you for your work this week to recap this week’s content!
I appreciate your insight into how the authors might view the progress made in the healthcare system’s focus on culture-based actions since the publication of this article. While there is still room for improvement, I think that there has been a large improvement in at least understanding its importance in patient care. I appreciate that in this week’s readings, they suggested practical ways to address some of these issues. Kreuter et al. (2004) state that one way to address culture in communication programs is to identify subgroups of populations that have an excess burden of health issues, focusing on the similarities within the subgroup that are influencing health, and addressing this within the program.
Question 1: When I was young (back in the ’90s), there was a health promotion campaign to increase activity in children. I remember seeing commercials during popular kids shows that encouraged children to “get outside!” While I can’t remember many of the cultural specifics of the campaign, I do remember that it was appropriately geared toward the culture of children. The peripheral approach included bright fun colors, “cool” fonts, and children playing outside, making the overall picture very appealing to kids. The sociocultural approach was also utilized to appeal to kids’ values of fun and behaviors of play. How this was portrayed in the campaign provided meaning and context to what it meant to “get outside.”
Question 2: I think that Brooks et al. (2019) had some good insights into suggestions for improving culturally sensitive care that include a collaborative approach between clinicians and patients/families. Specifically, they suggest that clinicians should be asking patients and their families “culturally sensitive questions about the patient’s and family’s values, beliefs, and practices; obtaining information about the patient’s perceptions and beliefs associated with their presenting illness” (Brooks et al., 2019, p. 386). The information gathered from asking these questions should then be clearly communicated to other clinicians involved in the patient’s care as well as documented in the patient’s chart (Brooks et al., 2019). The barrier I see in many articles about providing culturally sensitive care is mostly related to the time it requires in conjunction with the heavy patient load that most providers have. I think that the education of clinicians on this issue is non-negotiable, but I also believe that appropriate staffing levels of both physicians and nurses play a huge part in achieving culturally appropriate care.
References:
Kreuter, M. W., & McClure, S. M. (2004). The role of culture in health communication. Annu. Rev. Public Health, 25, 439-455.
Brooks, L. A., Manias, E., & Bloomer, M. J. (2019). Culturally sensitive communication in healthcare: A concept analysis. Collegian (Royal College of Nursing, Australia), 26(3), 383–391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2018.09.007