Perceived cultural barriers to effective communication amongst nurses and patients

Abstract

Nurses working in the Emergency Department are continuously encountering patients from different ethnic backgrounds, having their own cultural expectations. Cultural variations can commonly cause communication barriers between nurses and patients, and nurses feel responsible to tackle and solve such barriers to provide proper holistic care. This sociological study explores some of the perceived cultural barriers by nurses which affect communication between nurses and patients by making sense of the lived experience of local emergency nurses. The four main cultural aspects that were addressed comprehensively throughout this dissertation were gender expectations, language barriers, religious differences, and health literacy. The methodological approach followed throughout this study was a qualitative approach and consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews with nurses working in the Emergency Department. Questions asked throughout the interviews were oriented around the four main themes and data was extracted from first-hand experiences of the selected participants. Additionally, communication and therapeutic relationships between nurses and their patients was the focus of this study, which was interpreted and evaluated through the selected cultural themes previously mentioned. A thematic analysis was used to gather data into themes and were then interpreted based on available literature and sociological studies. Power dynamics, health illiteracy, inter-language barriers and patriarchy were four subthemes which emerged upon evaluating the findings. This dissertation shows that for emergency nurses, communication is not only based on verbal means but is also based on viewing the patient holistically and involving one’s cultural background. It recommends that communication is to be integrated into cultural knowledge, to better establish a therapeutic nurse- patient relationship.