Essay about heritage assessment

Submitted By tnbbenz
Words: 957
Pages: 4

Introduction The United States of America was founded on the basis of equality and freedom for all, regardless of ethnical race or culture. The United States is a mixture of different ethnical races and cultures, commonly known as a “melting pot”. Culture can be defined as integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups(Edelman, Kudzma, Mandle. 2014). America has become a place for all cultures to immigrate to and have the freedom to speech and practice their own religion and beliefs. The United States thrives on diversity and it would not be what it is today without this trait. Practicing in the nursing profession in America can be very rewarding, yet very difficult due to such a diverse society. The nurse must take time to learn about the different cultures commonly seen in their community. Providing cultural competent care is essential in the nursing profession. It involves care that includes the body, mind, spirit and cultural values of the individual (Kozier & Erb. 2008). Before we can begin with cultural competent care, we must start by assessing our patients in regards to their cultural background.

Heritage Assessment In preparation for this assignment we were provided a heritage assessment tool. This is a list of twenty nine questions we asked three different people from different cultures. The questions in assessing different cultures focused on religion, family, origin, language and preferences in regards to these topics. This tool helps us assess how strongly tied these individuals are to their cultures. In nursing, this helps the nurse adjust the care they provide to patient, according to the patients preferred practices.

Punjabi The first individual I assessed was born and raised in India. She moved to the United States of America at the age of twenty-three with her husband and two children. Her family continues to reside in India. She speaks Punjabi language and belongs to the Sikhism religion. For her culture, family and religion are very important. She visits her religion institute almost daily, and they strictly live their life by their religion. They cook cultural meals daily, active with prayer by praying two hours every morning and every evening. They are prohibited from cutting their hair, intoxication, wealth obsession, non-family oriented living, lying, eating meat and extra-marital relations (Robinson. 2010.).

Hispanic The Hispanic individual that I assessed was born in Mexico and brought to the United States of America at the age of six months. She was not very involved in her Catholic religion, but celebrates holidays with family. She keeps in contact with close relatives weekly and cooks meals from her culture on a regular basis. She does speak and read her language, Spanish, regularly. She has a big family, consisting of two brothers, two sisters, aunts, uncles and many cousins. She does participate with cultural activities, but has become accustomed to the American culture and life. Caucasian The Caucasian America, commonly known as “white” individual I assessed was born and raised in the town of Fresno, California. Her mother was born in Kerman, California and her father was born in Washington. She grew up living with her father, mother and one sister. She always keeps in contact with her immediate family, aunts, uncles and cousins, seeing them approximately once a month. She does participate in religious and ethnical activities, and cooks ethnical foods almost daily. Being born and raised in Fresno there is a wide variety of cultures. She has many friends from all types of different cultures.

Conclusion For the individual from India, health maintenance, protection and restoration revolved greatly around holistic care. The