Enhancing Patient-Centered Care in Diverse Communities

Presented by Helen L. Masin

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Video Runtime: 46 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 29 Minutes

This course introduces students to the clinical challenges of providing patient-centered care to patients and families from diverse communities. The course describes the broad aspects of cultural diversity in patients seeking pediatric PT and OT services. The course explains culture, cultural competence, the cultural continuum, census data, and the role of culture in beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. The importance of understanding one’s own culture as well as the culture of one’s profession and one’s clients is clarified. Differences between ethnocentrism and cultural pluralism are explained. Variables impacting family responses to therapy are discussed, high- and low-context cultural assumptions are compared and contrasted, and individualistic and collectivistic value orientations are explained. Tools for bridging cultural differences are examined, including rapport building when using medical translators during family interviews. The applicable audience is pediatric PT and OT clinicians working in hospitals, clinics, schools, or home-based settings with children and their families/caregivers.

Meet your instructor

Helen L. Masin

Dr. Masin is a physical therapist, faculty member (retired), and researcher. She began her career in 1970. She has worked in a wide variety of settings, including the VA hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts; Easterseals Rehabilitation in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, England; Hope Center in…

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Chapters & learning objectives

Understanding Culture and the Cultural Continuum

1. Understanding Culture and the Cultural Continuum

This chapter defines culture, cultural competence, and the stages of the cultural continuum. It explains common cultural challenges affecting families receiving pediatric PT and OT. It describes culture as communication, and communication as culture in the broadest sense.

How Cultural Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors May Impact Your Understanding of the Patient Perspective

2. How Cultural Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors May Impact Your Understanding of the Patient Perspective

This chapter discusses how cultural beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors impact patient-centered care. Issues of ethnocentrism are contrasted with cultural pluralism. Changes in the demographics of the USA are explained, and the need for developing culturally competent care is summarized.

High-Context and Low-Context Cultural Assumptions With Collectivistic and Individualistic Value Orientations in Diverse Communities

3. High-Context and Low-Context Cultural Assumptions With Collectivistic and Individualistic Value Orientations in Diverse Communities

This chapter discusses the concepts of high-context and low-context cultural assumptions and compares them with collectivistic and individualistic value assumptions. The chapter provides tools for bridging cross-cultural differences. The importance of clinicians understanding Kleinman’s explanatory model and Kleinman’s Eight Questions is described.

Tools for Bridging Cross-Cultural Differences

4. Tools for Bridging Cross-Cultural Differences

This chapter reviews the NLP (neurolinguistic psychology) skill of rapport building when working with medical translators during interviews with families in diverse communities. By matching the body language of the family spokesperson while listening to the translator, the clinician can establish rapport nonverbally with the family spokesperson while actively listening to the translator.