Cultural and Sexual Diversity Flashcards
What is culture based on?
Heritage
Individual circumstances
Personal choice
What is culture?
Each person in relationship to the group(s) with whom she/he identifies with
What are some examples that determine what culture someone is a part of?
Socioeconomic status
Beliefs
Sexual orientation
Diet
How can culture impact on patient’s presentation to health services?
They way they think about mental health
They way they make sense of certain symptoms and behaviours
Their view of potential services and services they choose to accept
Treatment and management strategies they find acceptable
Ways in which those who have mental health problems are perceived
Issues of access
Experience of service use
Visibility of services
What issues to do with culture can give rise to problems?
Pressure to practice family’s religion/other practices that don’t sit comfortably with the young person
Pressure to conform to expected gender roles
Pressures to conform to social norms
Pressures to conform to family expectations
Sexual orientation
Forced marriages
Why is diversity important to healthcare?
Increases diversity of populations
Take a patient-centres approach to improve outcomes
There are disparities in care accessed
What problems can arise from cultural differences for the health care professional?
Lack of knowledge - cannot recognise differences
Self-protection /denial - leads to attitude that these differences are not significant
Fear of unknown/knew - challenging/intimidating to understand something new that doesn’t fit into one’s world views
Feeling of pressure due to time-constraints - unable to look in depth at an individual patient’s needs
What actions should be considered when providing healthcare for different cultural groups?
A sensitive and respectful service acknowledging cultural needs and beliefs by history taking with a tick-box checklist
Respect cultural individuality whilst maintaining patient-centred curiosity
How can the actions for delivery of healthcare needs to different cultural groups be done?
Care planning
Cultural information sharing without making assumptions or falling back on stereotypes
Why can different terminology around sex be an issue when talking to patients?
Terms may mean different things to different people
Can lead to difficulties when taking a sexual history or discussing sexual behaviour
How can you overcome problems around terminology?
Use specific terms
Check patient understands them in the same way you do
Bit of info about the NATSAL survey?
National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyle
Done on 3 occasions - (1990-1, 1999-2000, 2010-2012)
Who is questioned in the NATSAL survey and what is asked?
People aged 16-74
Questions about sexual behaviour by an interviewer
What were the main changes found in the most recent NATSAL survey?
Increasing average number of heterosexual partners
More people reporting oral and anal sex
Decrease in how often people have sex
More people reporting a same-sex experience
More acceptance of this
Higher incidence of consistent condom use
More HIV tests and visits to STD clinics
What are the difficulties faced in getting accurate data about sexual behaviour?
Embarrased/reluctance to report sexual behaviours to interviewer
May not recall sexual encounters properly
Sampling problems
-under 16s and 75+ not included
-don’t know behaviour of people who declined to take part
