...Heritage Assessment of Three Culturally Diverse Families Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V January 7, 2016 Heritage Assessment of Three Culturally Diverse Families The United States has been known as the “melting pot” of the world. This continues to be true as a large amount of the population includes immigrants from across the world. America’s diverse population demands that health care workers be culturally competent (Edelman et al, 2014). In order to be culturally competent, the patient’s health traditions should be addressed as they relate to their ethnicity, religion, and heritage. This can be achieved by completion of the Heritage Assessment Tool (HAT). The Heritage Assessment Tool allows health care professionals, especially nurses, to have improved patient-nurse relationships and allows the patient to be treated as a whole being with respect to their beliefs and traditions. This paper will discuss the usefulness of applying the HAT as it evaluates the needs of three diverse families. The families of Vietnamese Americans, Mexican Americans, and Italian Americans will be discussed to identify the differences in health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. The families’ health traditions based on their cultural heritage will also be identified. Usefulness of Applying the Heritage Assessment Tool The Heritage Assessment tool evaluates the degree to which an individual lives by their cultural beliefs and traditions. The questionnaire contains...
Words: 1363 - Pages: 6
...ethnicities, but rather it is crucial to be inquisitive and focus on the family and individual as practices differ and evolve over time. Rachel Spector developed a Heritage Assessment interview as a useful tool to aid in understanding how strongly an individual or family subscribes to specific cultural traditions and practices, thereby strengthening the ability to provide Cultural Care. Cultural Care is a concept describing professional nursing care that is culturally sensitive, appropriate, and competent (Spector, 2004). Utilizing this assessment tool creates a way of determining an individual’s degree of identification with a given heritage. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment tool in order to evaluate the health needs of families. In order to do so, three Central California families were interviewed from different cultural backgrounds: Hispanic, African-American, and Polish. Each family interview will be summarized with an evaluation of how each subscribes to health traditions, and how each addresses health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. Hispanic Family The first interview is with a 40 year-old Hispanic female and her family. This individual was born in the United States, but her parents both born in Mexico. Her native language is Spanish and her children also speak Spanish. However, she only occasionally speaks Spanish with family members or when...
Words: 1693 - Pages: 7
...Heritage Assessment of Three Culturally Diverse Families Suzannah Turner NRS-429V Family-Centered Health Promotion 31 January 2016 Heritage Assessment of Three Culturally Diverse Families Being culturally competent and delivering culturally sensitive care is imperative for anyone in the medical profession. It is important because of the many diversities faced every day in the health care field. However, simply understanding the fact that there are so many health disparities is not enough. In order to reach out and effectively care for patients of different backgrounds and cultures one must understand the importance of cultural competency. In order to be culturally competent, a nurse must have knowledge of the different cultures, and have proper attitudes and skills that support patients of different cultures and backgrounds. Being culturally competent allows the nurse to plan the care around the patient’s different belief system and culture. Perhaps one of the most appropriate tools for aiding in cultural competency is the Heritage Assessment tool (HAT). The HAT assesses different ethnicities, religions, and cultural heritages including health traditions of individuals. The HAT promotes self-growth of the nurse and helps guide nurses in caring for the patient in a holistic manner. The HAT consists of 29 questions with different sections designed to assess different demographic backgrounds and certain personal health beliefs and practices. Completing an HAT helps the...
Words: 1885 - Pages: 8
...Family Centered Health Promotion: Heritage Assessment Tool Janice Ward NRS-429V May 31, 2015 Family Centered Health Promotion: Heritage Assessment Tool A critical skill in nursing is to assess multicultural patients in the USA today. The culturally competent nurse is able to evaluate the needs of clients and families through the use of a Heritage Assessment Tool. The successful completion of a Heritage Assessment Tool will provide the basis for understanding traditional health and illness beliefs and practices. The incorporation of the patient’s The Journal of Transcultural Nursing states as it’s 6th standard of practice for transcultural nursing the following: Nurses shall recognize the effect of health care policies, delivery systems, and resources on their patient populations and shall empower and advocate for their patients as indicated. Nurses shall advocate for the inclusion of their patient’s cultural beliefs and practices in all dimensions of their health care. (Lauderdale, Milstead, Nardi, Purnell, Douglas, Pierce, Rosenkoeter, Pacquiao, Callister, Hattar-Pollara, 2011) In order for the nurse to support their patient in receiving the best of health care it is imperative the nurse understand their patient’s heritage. “Health care organizations should ensure that patients receive from all staff members effective, understandable, and respectful care that is provided in a manner compatible with their cultural health beliefs and practices...
Words: 1756 - Pages: 8
...Heritage Assessment Latasha Rice, WCC- RN Grand Canyon University: NRS 429v Date: 8/31/2012 What is a heritage assessment? A heritage assessment is a subpart to the overall nursing assessment. Assessing a patient’s heritage allows the nurse to obtain more information about a patient’s culture, including beliefs about health and values, this is important to providing cultural health care. One’s heritage includes information about their cultural beliefs and practices of the family and ethno religious community (Jarvis, C., 2012). Through a heritage assessment the nurse can obtain a vast amount of information about the patient/ family, including but not limited to, where ancestors were born, how many siblings they have, if the family originated in another country, how often time is spent with family, religion, if the patient prefers the company of people with the same values and religion or ethnic background, what type of foods the patient prepares, and the patient’s native language. This paper will discuss what the author learned from completing a heritage assessment tool, the usefulness of a heritage assessment tool when assessing a patient/ family/ community as a whole. This paper will also compare the health traditions of three different families (and cultures) to include, health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration, while identifying common traditions based on the author’s heritage. What the families ascribe their traditions to will also be discussed...
Words: 1392 - Pages: 6
...Cultural Influences on Health Grand Canyon University Family Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V October 15, 2015 Cultural Influences on Health The heritage assessment is useful and gives the health care professional a detailed picture of how cultural differences influence health. The three individuals that were interviewed place importance on the cohesiveness on their families in health and illness. The family influences from the older members in their cultures place importance on folk medicine. When a member of the family is ill, they apply their faith and pray for that person. They value their religious belief in curing an illness with modern medicine. The food preferences varied somewhat from the different cultures however, pastries were common at cultural celebrations (Heritage Assessment Tool, 2015). It is evident that is important to be culturally competent before assessing a patient. It removes biases about a culture and the health care professional is culturally sensitive to give effective quality care and education. Polish Culture A large percentage of Poland’s population practices the Roman Catholicism religion. There is an order of priests, monks and nuns in the Roman Catholic Church. Rituals are part of the Catholic Church’s religious services. They encourage the continuation of folk culture like roadside shrines that are built and maintained by the community. There are yearly pilgrimages to these shrines such as Lankorona. On February 2 of each year...
Words: 1573 - Pages: 7
...Heritage Assessment Paul Bockoven Grand Canyon University NRS429-V October 14, 2012 Heritage Assessment Cultural assessments can be useful tools for a registered nurse to develop adequate plans of care, especially when it comes to education. They have limits however, as not every individual within a certain cultural ‘category’ can be expected to conform the way their heritage may dictate. Assigning a score to any person to predict how they may act, or learn, is contrary to the direction nursing care plans in general have taken. With that in mind, there is some value to using tools like the heritage assessment as a baseline, or starting point. The problem arises because of this particular tool being used to generalize instead of individualize. Developing a sense of a person’s cultural heritage and assigning an ambiguous score has no real meaning when the focus of a care plan is not supposed to take into account anything that is not directly related to the individual for whom it is being tailored. Standards clearly state that the assessment, planning and delivery of a person's care must be centered on the individual, and developed with them or their significant others (Rollin, 2011, p. 541). A person filling out the heritage assessment may, in fact, not adhere to or agree with it’s findings, may not understand it’s significance and as such, this tool could actually lead a caregiver in the wrong direction. The idea that any person who, according to this tool, identifies...
Words: 1484 - Pages: 6
...As a measurement tool, heritage assessment helps a person appreciate further his cultural background, find strengths in his personality (based from his specific cultural background), and work on weaknesses that he has. Unlike other assessment tools, this is a quantitative-based approach aimed at threshing out a person’s family, religious and ethnic background that Influences the healthcare delivered to that person or to their culture The greater the number of the positive responses shows the person’s greater identification with traditional heritage. (Spector 365) .Based from the writers experience, a person needs to answer questions in a heritage assessment tool and these questions are * Place of birth of one’s parents * Place of birth of their respective parents * His or her age when family migrated to the United States * Composition of one’s family * Number of family members which that person lives with * Degree of interaction with family members living outside one’s home. * Religion of one’s family * Religion of one’s spouse * Religion of one’s neighbors * Degree of belief in one’s religion and observance of religious holidays Based on these questions which was answered by the writer she found that she is Christian catholic, and was born and raised in India along with her family and parents. The Indians beliefs are very different than other culture. We still believes in strong family and have long families who lives together in a...
Words: 1377 - Pages: 6
...Running head: PERSONAL HERITAGE ASSESSMENT AND ITS USEFULNESS Personal heritage assessment and its usefulness April 15, 2012 Personal heritage assessment and its usefulness INTRODUCTION: In this paper, the writer will focus on the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of person as a whole, three different family’s opinions on health maintenance, health protection and health restoration. Also this paper will identify health traditions as regards to cultural heritage of the writer, then how the three families interviewed in this paper follow their customs and how important their traditions and practices are to them. Heritage can be described as the degree of which one’s lifestyle reflects his/her tribal culture. Cultural heritage exist in a continuum and a person can possess values both the traditional –living within the norms of the traditional culture and modern-living outside norms of the tradition. Spector (2004) The usefulness of the applying heritage assessment in evaluating of the needs of the whole person is outlined as follows; EFFECTIVE CARE: With the knowledge and application of heritage assessment patient will derive satisfaction and positive outcome in health will be achieved. RESPECTFUL CARE: Taking into consideration the values, preferences, n the expressed needs of the patient are met. CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE: By applying heritage assessment certain behaviors, attitudes, and policies that are...
Words: 1522 - Pages: 7
...Personal Heritage Assessment Question: What are the Personal heritage assessment and its usefulness? In this paper, the writer will focus on the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of person as a whole, three different family’s opinions on health maintenance, health protection and health restoration. Also this paper will identify health traditions as regards to cultural heritage of the writer, then how the three families interviewed in this paper follow their customs and how important their traditions and practices are to them. Heritage can be described as the degree of which one’s lifestyle reflects his/her tribal culture. Cultural heritage exist in a continuum and a person can possess values both the traditional –living within the norms of the traditional culture and modern-living outside norms of the tradition. Specter (2004) The usefulness of the applying heritage assessment in evaluating of the needs of the whole person is outlined as follows; EFFECTIVE CARE:- With the knowledge and application of heritage assessment patient will derive satisfaction and positive outcome in health will be achieved. RESPECTFUL CARE: - Taking into consideration the values, preferences, n the expressed needs of the patient are met. CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE:- By applying heritage assessment certain behaviors, attitudes, and policies that are seen in a system of multidisciplinary which enable them to work in cross-cultural...
Words: 1511 - Pages: 7
...Heritage Assessment Grand Canyon University 7/5/2014 Introduction Many times the United States is referred to as a melting pot of people, but this description of the diverse cultures and heritages that make up our nation fails to recognize the extreme individuality of the people here. Perhaps a better description would be a salad bowl, with each part and piece amazingly unique from the rest. Culture is a learned way of thinking and acting. “The behavioral, intellectual, and emotional forms of life expression represent a cultural heritage that is passed on from generation to generation” (Smith, 2009). Culture and heritage greatly influence all aspects of a person’s health. One’s heritage may determine a persons beliefs relating to the physical and /or spiritual approaches that people use to maintain, protect and restore health. The Heritage Assessment tool A heritage assessment tool is a set of 29 questions that address a person’s heritage. It looks at family connections, use of original language, religion, attendance of cultural functions and dietary habits and how closely an individual follows these practices from their cultural roots. Within this paper the author will examine the results of three families from India, Holland and Korea who took the assessment. It will look at how the heritage assessment ties in to help evaluate how closely an individual may follow common health traditions and practices such as health protection, maintenance and restoration from...
Words: 1908 - Pages: 8
...Assessment of Families with Heritage Assessment Tool Grand Canyon University September 2, 2014 Assessment of Families with Heritage Assessment Tool Each country has a different tradition, culture, customs and anindividual’scultural legacy plays a very important part in upgrading the health of that person. According to various sources, United States will observe an immense increase in mixture of cultures in the 21stcentury. Nurses should have a proper knowledge about the patient’s health who belonged to various cultures, and their social needs, in order to enrich their life’s value and the protection of health.Each patient will have different beliefs of their well-being and nurses should be able to recognize, evaluate and work with conventional health habits used by patients of all cultures A teaching method that endorse cultural skills can bedeveloped by educating nursing students about patients heritage evaluation and tradition (Toddmckee, 2012). The heritage assessment tool aids to differentiate various customs and culture of different societies. The main aim of this paper is to apply the heritage assessment tool to evaluate the requirements of a person and his health preservation, assertion, and renewal. In this paper, evaluation of three families, their family background, their culture and tradition is been discussed. Usefulness of Applying Heritage Assessment Tool The purpose of this Heritage Assessment tool is to provide awareness to students which will help them to understand...
Words: 1641 - Pages: 7
...Heritage Assessment Tracie Bigelow Grand Canyon University: 429V Melinda Darling September 29, 2013 Heritage Assessment Culture is defined as the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society group place of time (Culture, 2013). The heritage assessment tool is a great method used to assess health maintenance, protection, and restoration of each individual’s cultural beliefs. The heritage assessment tool is often used by healthcare providers to help determine different cultural beliefs that may or may not impact an individuals care. The heritage assessment tool has been used to compare three different cultured families, health traditions, addressing health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. During the interview process with the three different cultured families, the heritage assessment tool was very helpful in determining the similarities and differences of each family. The twenty-nine questions asked in the heritage assessment tool gave the families room to elaborate and open up about certain beliefs. This tool is a great method that is used in hospital settings to help determine ones cultural beliefs. Nurses need to be aware of the different cultures to help provide good care. The heritage assessment tool helps provide information about each culture and how to provide good quality care to their liking. The first interview conducted was with an American family (The Bigelow’s) that has no religious beliefs. The family consists of...
Words: 977 - Pages: 4
...Heritage Assessment Kyler G. Merrill Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V 01/18/2015 Heritage Assessment Tool Today in society there are many diverse culture and ethnic backgrounds, each with their own habits, traditions, preferences, and of these includes health. Different needs of the whole person should be evaluated in detail. This paper will discuss results from three different cultures through the interviewing of them using the Heritage Assessment Tool. It will also review, compare, and address health traditions between the cultures as well as identify common health traditions based on cultural heritage. The purpose is to evaluate and discuss how families subscribe to these traditions/practices, address health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration according to the assessment. Why Heritage Assessment? One method for determining an individuals or groups needs is to use some type of tool in order to complete the assessment. Over 20 years ago an assessment tool was used in order to promote public health and awareness ("Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic," n.d.). The name later became known as “Healthy People 2000 and 2010” and 2020 is soon to come ("Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic," n.d.). The tool contains twenty-nine different and varying questions to obtain detail of birth, siblings, immigration, religion, school, ethnic activities/cuisine and other topics. The usefulness of applying a heritage assessment is because...
Words: 1199 - Pages: 5
...HERITAGE ASSESSMENT PAPER Lara G. Heier Grand Canyon University: NRS- 429 4/9/2016 The Heritage Assessment tool is used by healthcare professionals in order for them to find out the patient’s cultural, religious and ethnic background. Culture is defined as an element of ethnicity, consisting of shared values and behaviors associated with a particular group. (Edelman, et al, 2014) In order to improve the quality of care, it’s important to understand the patient’s culture and the health practices they traditionally use. Regarding the Heritage Assessment tool’s usefulness, it will allow the healthcare professional to understand the patient as a whole due to the fact that it addresses the individual’s heritage, cultural, religious and ethic background and behaviors and how they may relate to the patient’s views on health and wellness. To be Culturally Competent, one has to be able to provide healthcare based on the total patient situation- ethnically, culturally and spiritually. The Heritage Assessment Tool is designed to open up dialogue in order for the healthcare professional to have a better understanding of their patient and allow them to provide more effective healthcare with the patient’s own health traditions having been assessed. This, ideally, will result in a holistic approach to healthcare. (Giger & Davidhizar, 1990) Common Health Traditions Based on the cultural heritage information received from the Heritage Assessment Tool filled...
Words: 1238 - Pages: 5
