Cultural Considerations
Essay by people • February 12, 2012 • Essay • 379 Words (2 Pages) • 1,539 Views
Many Hispanics patients seem to be targeted with barriers while using health care facilities. Many health care providers often deal with these barriers while attempting to treat Hispanic. The use of healthcare services has a lower number of patients in Hispanics because most of the attention is the language barrier and cultural differences which sometimes leads to false conclusion or even the physician completely biased. "Language and culture are by no means the only factors that may act as a barrier. In order to enlighten care providers, as to the potential pitfalls that may exist, there is a need to explore the different factors in the creation of the barriers" (Scheppers, 2005). Many Hispanics lack health insurance which usually prevents the many Hispanic people from receiving health care and the language barrier and most ability to speak English sometimes prevent Hispanic patients from communicating with his or her physician.
Hispanic women receive little or no healthcare at all especially prenatal care than any other ethnic group. "Results also showed that Mexican American pregnant teenagers are at particularly high risk regarding prenatal care due to a combination of structural and cultural factors" (Alcalay, 2011). Despite the status of healthcare, the Hispanics has been targeted as a problem in communication in healthcare since the 1060s. The major challenges for many physicians are a big increase of the diversity of how cultural factors sometimes influence the patients' reply to his or her medical problems to the physician. The lack of Hispanics speaking English prohibits his or her care, and jeopardizes communication effectively between the patient and the health care provider. Most instructions and messages are communicated by mouth, many Hispanics feel embarrassed because they could not speak or understand English therefore many of them lack the care they need. The relationship between the physician and the Hispanic patient is essentially vertical because of social differentials by unevenness on institutional levels, cognitive, and linguistic.
Overcoming cultural competence in the use of health care providers can affect the health among the diversity of the populations. It is important for health care workers to understand health disparities and become a more competent provider concerning communicating with patients with different cultural differences
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