Providing Culturally Sensitive Nursing Care

Marilyn Hardy Bougere, MSN, RN, CNS, a nursing instructor at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, provides an article for MinorityNurses.com, addressing how understanding how cultural difference effect a patient experiencing grief, can enhance nursing care. The article itself provides an excellent review of some older literature. Following the article, there are two fictionalized case studies about providing culturally and linguistically competent nursing care. HFA's 2009 Living with Grief teleconference will focus on multiculturalism and end-of-life care.

"As the racial, ethnic and cultural diversity of the U.S. population continues to increase, there is an ever-growing need for the health care profession to become culturally competent in all aspects of care delivery—and this includes the care we provide to grieving patients and their families. A recently published article on cultural diversity and grief states that the need for culturally sensitive grief/bereavement educators and counselors is on the rise and that health care providers must continue to expand their knowledge of the many ways that people grieve."