Sample Answer for NURS 6512 Discussion: Diversity and Health Assessments Included After Question
May 2012, Alice Randall wrote an article for The New York Times on the cultural factors that encouraged black women to maintain a weight above what is considered healthy. Randall explained—from her observations and her personal experience as a black woman—that many African-American communities and cultures consider women who are overweight to be more beautiful and desirable than women at a healthier weight. As she put it, “Many black women are fat because we want to be” (Randall, 2012).
Randall’s statements sparked a great deal of controversy and debate; however, they emphasize an underlying reality in the healthcare field: different populations, cultures, and groups have diverse beliefs and practices that impact their health. Nurses and healthcare professionals should be aware of this reality and adapt their health assessment techniques and recommendations to accommodate diversity.
In this Discussion, you will consider different socioeconomic, spiritual, lifestyle, and other cultural factors that should be taken into considerations when building a health history for patients with diverse backgrounds. Your Instructor will assign a case study to you for this Discussion.
Resources
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To prepare:
- Reflect on your experiences as a nurse and on the information provided in this week’s Learning Resources on diversity issues in health assessments.
- By Day 1 of this week, you will be assigned a case study by your Instructor. Note: Please see the “Course Announcements” section of the classroom for your case study assignment.
- Reflect on the specific socioeconomic, spiritual, lifestyle, and other cultural factors related to the health of the patient assigned to you.
- Consider how you would build a health history for the patient. What questions would you ask, and how would you frame them to be sensitive to the patient’s background, lifestyle, and culture? Develop five targeted questions you would ask the patient to build his or her health history and to assess his or her health risks.
- Think about the challenges associated with communicating with patients from a variety of specific populations. What strategies can you as a nurse employ to be sensitive to different cultural factors while gathering the pertinent information?
By Day 3 of Week 2
Post an explanation of the specific socioeconomic, spiritual, lifestyle, and other cultural factors associated with the patient you were assigned. Explain the issues that you would need to be sensitive to when interacting with the patient, and why. Provide at least five targeted questions you would ask the patient to build his or her health history and to assess his or her health risks.
Note: For this Discussion, you are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleagues’ postings. Begin by clicking on the Reply button to complete your initial post. Remember, once you click on Post Reply, you cannot delete or edit your own posts and you cannot post anonymously. Please check your post carefully before clicking on Post Reply!
Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.
By Day 6 of Week 2
Respond on or before Day 6 on 2 different days to at least two of your colleagues who were assigned a different patient than you. Critique your colleague’s targeted questions, and explain how the patient might interpret these questions. Explain whether any of the questions would apply to your patient, and why.
A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 6512 Discussion: Diversity and Health Assessments
Title: NURS 6512 Discussion: Diversity and Health Assessments
Culture and socioeconomic factors influence the health outcomes for patients. Therefore, understanding the specific needs of the patients helps in developing appropriate intervention measures that guarantee better outcomes (Hu et al., 2019). In this case, JC is an at-risk 86-year-old Asian male who is financially and physically dependent on the daughter. The patient presents with hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux disease, chronic prostatitis, and b12 deficiency.
Socioeconomic, Spiritual, Lifestyle, and Other Cultural Factors Associated with the Patient
The patient is lonely considering that she depends on her daughter who is a single mother and has no time or money for the father’s
health needs. In addition, the patient does not get spiritual support. Considering his age and physical instability, he cannot attend religious activities (Lee, 2017). The patient feels that he is already a burden to his daughter and feels sorry about it as evident in his conversation during his visit to the clinic. The reduced mobility and lack of social and spiritual support expose the patient to a sedentary lifestyle. Also, poor dietary intake could impact his health outcomes. Furthermore, understanding the Asian culture is necessary to interact appropriately with the patient.
Issues That You Would Need to Be Sensitive to When Interacting with the Patient
In interacting with the patient, one must be sensitive to avoid the possibility of conflict arising (Ball et al., 2019). In this case, it will be necessary to ask the patient whether he will be comfortable using the prescribed medications over the traditional medications (Xin et al., 2020). Besides, it is important to understand the additional medications that the client could be taking to avoid adverse medication interactions. The patient is physically inactive and this means that he may not engage appropriately in the activities of daily living. Therefore, asking the patient about his ability to bathe and feed will be important.
The targeted questions to ask will include:
- Do you have health insurance?
- How often do you check your blood pressure?
- How many meals do you take in a day?
- Do you always take medications as prescribed?
- Do you think your daughters offer you enough support?
The assessment aims at identifying the underlying factors that could affect the patient’s illnesses. The human healing processes depend on other factors such as spiritual and socioeconomic needs. In this case, the patient is lonely and requires enough social support.
References
Ball, J., Dains, J., Flynn, J., Solomon, B., Stewart, R. (2019). Seidel’s guide to physical examination: An interprofessional approach (9th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.
Hu, Y., Jiao, M., & Li, F. (2019). Effectiveness of spiritual care training to enhance spiritual health and spiritual care competency among oncology nurses. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.2.16979/v2
Lee, R., Eun-Kyoung, O. (2017). Faith, spirituality, and values among Asian-American older adults: An exploratory factor analysis of the multidimensional measures of religion and spirituality. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19 (8), 920–931. doi:10.1080/13674676.2017.1290593
Xin, B., Mu, S., Tan, T., Yeung, A., Gu, D., Feng, Q. (2020). Belief in and use of traditional Chinese medicine in Shanghai older adults: A cross-sectional study. BMC Complement Medicine and Therapies 20 (128). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-02910-x. https://bmccomplementmedtherapies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12906-020- 02910-x
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A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 6512 Discussion: Diversity and Health Assessments
Title: NURS 6512 Discussion: Diversity and Health Assessments
I enjoyed reading your entry. The targeted questions you suggested would help you gather more information about the patient. On a scale of 0-10, 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain, how can you rate your headache? The patients’ pain level can help you understand how critical the pain may be effecting the patient. Depending on the severity of the headache you have to monitor for other healthcare issues he could possibly be facing. The patient would most likely be open to explain how bad the headache is hurting him. Do you smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or use any recreational drugs? This question is a good question because some of these things aggravate a headache even more and some recreational drugs can enhance a headache. Recreational drugs cause a risk to a patients’ health and may enhance a patients want to self harm. Also there are negative impacts of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs on the patients’ health. Smoking cigarettes increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, and cancer (Health effects of cigarette smoking, 2021). Do you feel safe at home? How much sleep do you get? Do you feel depressed? Do you feel like hurting yourself? These four questions help the provider understand the patient’s mental health level.
The patient safety and mental health is important to address when addressing medical issues. The patients’ frequent flyer status at the hospital may be a indicator of situations sometimes characterized by physical, mental, spiritual, and social deprivation of their home situations (Huang, van der Borght, Leithaus, Flamaing, and Goderis, 2020). The patient may no be that open to answering these questions because they may seem invasive to him. I would try to make the patient feel comfortable and safe before assessing him. What coping skills/mechanism works for you when you are stressed? The patients coping skills is important to address because the patient is a frequent flyer to the hopital. The patient may be lacking coping skills and may be reluctant to open up about his coping mechanisms. Patients with maladaptive coping mechanisms are more likely to engage in health risk behaviors (Algorani & Gupta, 2022). What do you do for a living? Although this is a good question, I don’t believe this would help you gather information about the patients chief complaint.
The questions that would apply to my patients is the questions about coping mechanisms, safety, depression, and self harm. My patient is a transgender male that recently came out so his mental health status may be a risk for depression and possible self harm. My patient has also had losses in employment and had to move back home with his parents so his coping skills may be questioned on how he is dealing with the recent transitions in his life. My patient also may face a lot of bias, discrimination, and stigmas with his recent transition to male which could place him in harms way. The question about smoking, alcohol, and drugs would also apply to my patient because he smokes cigarettes and marijuana.
Algorani EB, Gupta V. Coping Mechanisms. [Updated 2022 Apr 28]. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559031/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, October 29). Health effects of cigarette smoking. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/#health-risks
Huang, M., van der Borght, C., Leithaus, M., Flamaing, J., & Goderis, G. (2020). Patients’ perceptions of frequent hospital admissions: a qualitative interview study with older people above 65 years of age. BMC geriatrics, 20(1), 332. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01748-9Links to an external site.
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Replies to each graded thread topic posted by the course instructor, by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT, of each week, and posts a minimum of two times in each graded thread, on separate days. (5 points possible per graded thread) |
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