Cultural Care Model Paper

Everyone has experience growing up and being socialized into their culture which is considered the norm. Each culture has differences ranging from minor to drastically different. It would be difficult to learn every detail of all cultures, but nurses must at a minimum have a basic working knowledge of various cultures and be familiar with what each culture considers appropriate, disgracing, or insulting to provide proper care and increased compliance.

Being sensitive to other cultures has numerous benefits to both the nurse and the patient. Cultural care will give the nurse a foundation of knowledge to begin a relationship with his/her patient and build their trust. The patient will feel validated and important when the nurse treats them and respects their cultural values. It will also help the patient feel more comfortable. The patient is not only uncomfortable being in a culture that thinks and behaves differently but also in an unfamiliar situation of being ill and not knowing how to get better. The patient will also be more likely to share important information with the nurse that they might not have otherwise, this in turn helps the nurse aid the patient in their recovery process. The purpose of this paper is to give nurses a foundational understanding of the

This cultural care model consists of six assessment areas that are critical for nurses to understand to provide appropriate cultural care to their patients. Giger and Davidhizer want to give this knowledge to nursing students early in their education so they will understand and have a solid foundation of cultural care upon graduation and know how to continue this journey of mastery throughout their career. The GDTAM describes six assessment areas including communication, space, social organization, time, environmental control, and biological variations (Giger & Davidhizar, 2002). These areas will be discussed further in the following