Heritage Assessment Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V 05/19/2013 Before asking the questions from Heritage Assessment tool, meaning of Cultural Heritage must be known.
Cultural Assessment is legacy of intangible attributes and cultural property of a society or a group that are descended from the past generations, maintained in the current generation and carried forward for the betterment of the future generations.Tangible culture such as landscapes, buildings, books, art and artifacts, intangible culture such as traditions, folklore, knowledge, language and natural heritage such as biodiversity, culturally significant landscapes are all included in the cultural heritage. Every individual’s perception regarding the disease process, health and end of life is based upon their cultural heritage. Culture not only influences the patient but also the medical professionals, who are rendering care to these patients.Heritage includes determination of individual’s religious, ethnic and cultural background (Spector 2009). Cultural heritage is also used the individuals to protect, maintain and restore health and these concepts involves the individuals spiritual, mental and physical beliefs.
In this paper advantage of applying heritage assessment tool will be discussed. Heritage assessment tools include twenty nine questions, which involves questions regarding religion, family, traditions, food choices and demographics. Traditional heritage relies on positive answers for individual’s identification.This assessment tools unique because questions are the same but answers differ from person to person, even the siblings tend to have different answers. The heritage assessment helped the individual interviewing theses families, understand their beliefs, values and their perception of health care.
This tool also helps us understand the cultural uniqueness and how beliefs and values are passed from one generation to the other. Heritage assessment helps to identify the similarities between different cultures and ethnicities. The first family interviewed was the writer’s family.The Heritage assessment tool was used on the writer’s family for interview. All positive questions from the twenty nine questions were asked and answered.
The writer’s family had very pro active approach towards health care. Most of the writer’s family members were in medical field as doctors and nurses. This family kept themselves updated in the latest research on the advancement of health promotion and nutrition. Most of the family members in this family were vegetarians and other family member hardly ate any red meat.
This family prefers to eat chicken, fish, egg- mostly egg whites and vegetables.The writer’s family believes in modern medicine and sees the doctors regularly to make sure every thing is going ok with their bodies. Hypertension and heart disease tends to run in the family for which they take prescription medication as prescribed. This family carries medical insurance supplied by the employer. The use of old traditional remedies is also common practice for minor health problems like fever, sore throat, cut and burns.
For example: For sore throats this family believed in drinking chicken soup and honey mixed with black pepper.Younger generations of this family were highly motivated to stay fit and follow strict nutirtion. This generation particapted with social fitness events and kept the active gym membership. Second family interviewed was Garcia family. This family is originally from Mexico.
Most of the family members in this family work in construction of homes. A very hard working family, who are humble and religious. Majority of people in this family are not educated. This family has no concept of eating healthy; they eat what they want and when they want.Their typical day starts with eating break fast taco are neighborhood gas station food store. This gas stations food store is known to serve food with hight cholestrol, fat and calories but very economical.
Very high consumption of red meats, combined with alcohol is also seen in this family. Many of the family members in this family suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Because many of the family members have these diseases, every one in this family thinks it is ok to be obese or have diabetes. I found that very shocking.This family does not have health insurance and they do not go the physican for regular check ups due to high costs and their immigration status issues. They only seek medical treatment for any life threatning conditions like severe chest pain, shortness breath and diabetic coma.
Traveling to Mexico and seeking medical attention and also buying unauthorised medicaitons form pharmacy is also common practice. Third family interviewed was Chinese family. This family has been living in United States for 20 years. They moved to United States to open their own clothing store.
This is very hard working family, they believe in education and business. This family does not pay much attention to their diet because their traditional foods what eat are healthy and they eat in small portions. Their food choices include rice, eggs, chicken, beef, pork, soups and lots of vegetables. Daily exercise and meditation is the part of every day life for this family. This family buys their own insurance and goes for regular doctor’s visits. They include lot of ancient Chinese traditional natural medicaitons to treat minor diseases.
Traveling to China and seeking medical attention for minor surgeries are also common in this family. Last year this family travelled to China for some dental work because it was cost effective. Younger generation in this family are influnced in American culture, they prefer to eat fast foods like burgers, taco and pizza. This generation also prefers to exercise at the gym and other health clubs to keep themselves fit. In this twenty first century being culturally competent is imperative in providing quality health care.
This is where Heritage Assessment plays an important role in helping nurses to assess their clients throughly.It is a well known fact that gender, race, sex and ethnicity can have both positive and negative impact on the health of the individual, so it is very important to use multidimensional approach that incorporates patient’s cultural heritage, belives and evidence based practice in creating the plan of care for the patient. This ensures a positive outcome for the patient. References: http://wps.
prenhall. com/wps/media/objects/663/679611/box_6_1. pdf http://www. culture-4-travel. com/facts-about-china. html http://www.
cultureindevelopment. nl/Cultural_Heritage/What_is_Cultural_Heritage http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cultural_heritage
