Cultural Competence in Caring for the Filipino Patient
The cultural framework within the United States has increasingly becoming more diverse. The ability of the nurse to provide care that is specific to each patient’s background is, therefore, also becoming an expectation. Cultural competence is defined as the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are essential for for providing quality care to diverse populations (The California Endowment, 2003). A nurse’s goal now is to not only have strong clinical and interpersonal skills, but also to be culturally competent. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Filipino population as patients in terms of what they value in the care they receive in the hospital. This paper will examine the specific case study where Filipinos were the focal point, will offer some tips to providing culturally competent care, and will summarize how this population’s care can be optimized. The Filipino culture was chosen because the population of Filipinos in Las Vegas has doubled between the years of 2000-2010 making it the fastest growing area of Filipinos in the country (Lapan, 2012).
Summary of Article
The article, “The Experience of Filipino American Patients with Cancer” by Harle, DelaCruz, Veloso, Rock, Faulkner, and Cohen (2007) examines how the Filipino culture impacts what they value in receiving a care in a hospital setting. There is very limited research on this group of patients that play a major role in health care, especially in the Southwestern United States, where many Filipino nurses come to practice. This particular study included twenty three participants, all of which had cancer and were hospitalized. The study was conducted via group interviews because the researchers deemed this type of interaction to be the type that the Filipino culture is most open to (Harle et al., 2007). During interview sessions, attempts were made to help the participants to feel as comfortable as possible by providing...