How does the community health nurse recognize bias, stereotypes, and implicit bias within the community? How should the nurse address these concepts to ensure health promotion activities are culturally competent?

The Role of Community Nurses in Delivering Culturally Competent Care

Bias and stereotypes hinder access to quality healthcare among community members. Healthcare professionals, including nurses, exhibit bias toward patients (Madeira et al., 2022). Elimination of bias and stereotypes increases patient outcomes, decreases costs, decreases inefficiency, and reduces disparities. Community nurses can recognize bias and stereotypes by collecting information among community members (Madeira et al., 2022). Community nurses create an environment where patients can report any experienced biases they have experienced when seeking treatment. Patients can use suggestion boxes and anonymously present their complaints. Community nurses investigate any complaints without favouring their fellow healthcare workers. Nurses educate the community on their right to quality healthcare. Patients who do not understand their rights tend to ignore poor services rendered. Health promotion must be culturally competent and well-tailored to fit the surrounding population. Accordingly, community nurses create health promotion sessions that cover gender, community-specific bias, race, and diversity. Healthcare workers are educated on how to separate their personal and patient beliefs. Healthcare professionals must recognize the differences between them and their patients.

Community nurses identify the languages spoken within the community and by the healthcare professionals to curb the language barrier.   After identifying the community’s different cultural and diversity aspects, community nurses create healthcare teams that can improve the cross-cultural population (Vela et al., 2022). Each team should be inclusive and diverse. Community nurses seek the services of interpreters trained in ethics and patients’ rights. Healthcare professionals must understand that despite the similarities in culture, religion, and beliefs, patients are unique. Besides, health promotion advocates for treating a patient as an individual and respecting patients’ rights. Lastly, community nurses enforce penalties for healthcare workers who practice bias and stereotypes against their patients.

References

Madeira, F., Costa-Lopes, R., Do Bú, E. A., & Tato Marinho, R. (2022). The role of stereotypical information on medical judgments for black and white patients. PloS one, 17(6), e0268888. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268888.

Vela, M. B., Erondu, A. I., Smith, N. A., Peek, M. E., Woodruff, J. N., & Chin, M. H. (2022). Eliminating Explicit and Implicit Biases in Health Care: Evidence and Research Needs. Annual review of public health, 43, 477–501. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-052620-103528.