The nature of the problems experienced by non-Zulu student nurses during their encounter with Zulu patients

Abstract

South African nurses have accepted the challenge that was brought about by the Health Reform Policy of 1990 which opened health service centres to people of all racial and cultural groups. However, recent studies on multicultural nursing have revealed that problems have occurred when delivering care across cultural barriers. Most of these studies have approached these problems from the patients point of view, where issues of dehumanized care, labelling and discrimination have been reported. Therefore, this study was an attempt to look into these problems from the nurses point of view, by exploring the source of these problems, their effect on health care delivery and possible solutions. The researcher focussed on three critical issues, namely, lack of cultural knowledge, negative attitudes, as well as difficulty in communication. Through focus group interviews (FGI) and responses to given scenarios, student nurses who had experienced problems with culturally different patients were given a chance to reflect on their experiences, report on these experiences and recommend possible solutions to the experienced problems. The results revealed that: 1. The major source of the problems was lack of experience due to inadequate exposure to culturally diverse groups which in tum led to inappropriate decisions and actions at care delivery level. 2.Difficult perceptions and negative attitudes lead to the formation of stereotypes which block the delivery of culturally congruent care. 3 .Inability to communicate due to differences in spoken language lead to difficulty in building the trust relationship and hence inadequate care delivery.