Culturally diverse patient–nurse interactions on acute care wards

Abstract

The nurse-patient interaction is central to providing nursing care. This qualitative study explores nurses' and culturally diverse patients' experiences within nurse-patient relationships in acute care wards. Eight nurses and their respective patients volunteered to join the study and were interviewed. The three themes identified in relationships between nurses and culturally diverse patients were shared tension, perceived difference and held awareness. It is concluded from the study that relationships between nurses and culturally diverse patients in acute care wards during short episodes of hospitalization are not easy for nurses and need to receive deeper consideration as to how they can be developed more effectively. It is recommended that educational support be provided to develop more effective interactions between nurses and patients with research being carried out to investigate factors that can strengthen culturally diverse patient-nurse interactions in acute care settings.

Enhancing adult therapeutic interpersonal relationships in the acute health care setting: an integrative review

“…Increasing therapeutic engagement has been identified as a priority within health care. 37 Consequently, therapeutic interpersonal relationships need to be recognized in clinical practice, education, and research. 13 Cioffi, 38 exploring culturally diverse patient experiences in the acute care setting, found the development of therapeutic interpersonal relationships difficult, and therefore nurses require greater capacity to develop a deeper consideration with educational support to enable effective and meaningful interactions.…”

Cultural and communicative competence in the caring relationship with patients from another culture

“…Also, the results showed that nurses often lack knowledge about patients’ belief systems. Previous research linked belief and religion and showed that it is a challenge for nurses to affirm patients’ spirituality in health care (). For Sivonen , the spiritual and religious dimension is connected with flexibility, love and commitment, that is with providing loving care.…”

“…According to Halligan , nurses believe that the patients’ next of kin concern themselves much with the patients’ well‐being. Cioffi indicates that the patients feel it is important to have a member of the family present to feel calm. It is often important for intercultural patients to stay in contact with their next of kin and to feel belonging, which means that having them there with the patient is found to be beneficial .…”

Views of recent Singapore nursing graduates: factors influencing nurse–patient interaction in hospital settings

“…Heavy workloads can lead to participants being task-orientated in order to complete activities and tasks, with patient interaction becoming less of a priority. The literature supports the notion that heavy workloads impact on the quality of nursing care, particularly interactions between nurses and their patients (Cioffi, 2006;Tay et al, 2012). Besides heavy nursing workloads, administrative duties and non-direct nursing tasks were reported to impede nurse-patient interactions supporting previous research (Abbey, Chaboyer, & Mitchell, 2012;Myny et al, 2011).…”

“…However, experiences of interaction can be positive or negative. Negative experiences may relate to cultural differences (Cioffi, 2006), or mistrust, dismissive or unreceptive responses (Ruan & Lambert, 2008). While nurses often wish to spend more time interacting with their patients, they can be constrained by workload pressures and the amount of actual time available to realistically interact with patients (Mooney, 2007;Pearcey, 2010).…”