Nursing: The Role Of Cultural Relativism In Nursing

Cultural relativism is a process involving the examining and understanding of a culture, /different from your own, without discrediting their beliefs. Understanding differing cultural beliefs can be acquired by considering functions of practices, behaviors, symbols, traditions, and morals within a society. The initial concept of cultural relativism was created to turn people away from ethnocentrism, which is the belief that your cultures beliefs are authentic and all other cultures beliefs are phony. The cultural relativism was a method first developed by anthropologists in the 1920’s and just thirty years later the concept was incorporated into nursing practices. Nursing is an extremely diverse occupation although a broad description consists of a certified healthcare professional, working in a chaotic environment, providing care to a variety of patients requiring physical or
Census, there was a substantial growth in ethnic groups; including Asian, Hispanic, Hawaiian, Indian, and African American. In contrast, the registered nurse workforce recorded that 90% of registered nurses are female and 83.2% of registered nurses are white, which perfectly describes myself. Thus the high population of various ethnic groups in the U.S. are widely underrepresented in the nursing workforce. However, in cross-cultural settings, nurses generally aim to display cultural relativistic assessments, to maintain a person’s dignity by respecting their cultural differences and incorporating their beliefs into their healthcare needs. The use of cultural relativism in a nursing career can provide a more comfortable and favorable environment for patients. Many nurses acknowledge that common cultural challenges include, overlapping cultural preferences, language barriers, a shortage of cultural awareness, and dynamic changes. Some cultural impediments in a nursing environment can be resolved fairly easily, while others may be more challenging to