Cultural, spiritual and religious needs

Cultural, Spiritual and Religious
Needs
 Relate to the core of a person’s identity
 Healthcare professionals (nurses) need to acquaint themselves to the culture and
religion of their patients to respect the humanity of that person

Culture
 Refers to the world view the person has and consists of os beliefs, habits, likes and
dislikes, customs, rituals, values and traditions that a person ascribes to
 Often learnt from one’s family
 Can never be static
 One can move into different cultures and ger assimilated into new cultures
 Nurses need to be sensitive to the cultural backgrounds of patients
 Culture has major effects on the following aspects of life:
 Gender roles
 Language and communication
 Dietary habits
 Social patterns
 Biological inheritance
 Healing practices

Culturally safe care
 Most cultures have traditional healing practices
 Western approaches to health often ignore and render invisible indigenous health
beliefs and practices
 Culturally safe care is the cultural awareness that leads to actively promoting self-empowerment
of indigenous people to influence their care and support positive health outcomes

Culturally unsafe VS. culturally safe care
Culturally unsafe Culturally safe
Care is generalised from Western models Indigenous explanatory models of health
without accommodating indigenous and illness are considered during the
cultural beliefs and practices encounter
Concerns of indigenous people are Active participation in decision making
dismissed as not important or invalid about their own health and illness is
encouraged
Negative stereotypes are applied to They are treated as equals in a caring
indigenous people manner