Recommendations for culturally sensitive nursing care.
Australia's health care clientele reflects the diversity of this multicultural society. Patients and health care professionals have expectations of health care which may not be met to their satisfaction or needs. The perceived inadequacies of and increased demands on the Australian health care system are reflected in the literature and by active political lobbying. Thus, there is an urgent need to investigate how the health care system can be improved and how recommendations from research can be put into place. One mechanism that may provide some of the changes required is to use the skills, experience and qualifications of culturally and linguistically diverse nurses. This paper, which is based on a descriptive ethnographic research project, will provide insight for utilizing this valuable and available resource, and how nursing education curricula can be modified to adequately incorporate transcultural nursing practices, so that nurses can meet the challenges of caring for Australia's multicultural population.
School of Nursing, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia. pjosip@deakin.edu.au
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D001315:Australia; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003479:Curriculum; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D006801:Humans; D019303:Multilingualism; D016746:Transcultural Nursing / Q000193:education*