Free Essay: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

How does verbal and nonverbal communication affect Transcultural nursing assessment?

Many times nurses find themselves assessing patients from different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the most crucial aspect is to build strong interpersonal communication skills. Both verbal and non-verbal communication is necessary for the assessment of a patient. To identify the clients' values, practices, perceptions, beliefs, and unique healthcare needs, nurses are obliged to use culturally competent non-verbal and verbal communication skills. Every qualified nurse should have the ability to build cultural responsiveness and awareness. Cultural awareness means being knowledgeable about one's feelings, thoughts, and sensations and appreciating others' diversity. On the other hand, cultural responsiveness helps the nurse to have a self-reflection of her personal beliefs, cultural identity, norms, language, and behavior. These factors enable the nurse to guide her interactions and perceptions with the patient. Therefore, reciprocal and respectful communication with a patient is a crucial assessment factor.

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Nonverbal communication is brought about by sociocultural norms and expressed through body languages such as facial expressions, reflexes, eye contact, motions, gestures, touch, cultural artifacts, and appearance. Some of the nonverbal sounds that the patient may exhibit include crying, laughing, groaning, and grunting. The patient's appearance gets reflected through hygiene and grooming. Cultural artifacts include makeup and cosmetics, jewelry, perfumes, and clothes. An Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) must confirm the meaning of the cultural artifacts with the patient to provide appropriate cultural nonverbal communication.

How does communication vary from culture to culture?

Culture and communication mutually influence each other. As time changes, also the people's social, economic conditions change. Communication plays a significant role in the realization of these social, economic changes. Different cultural backgrounds, past experiences, and perceptions significantly affect people's behavior and communication. The style of communication gets shaped by culture. In most cases, people's reaction gets based on how another person speaks rather than what the person says.

In cultures where individuals socialize freely, the mode of communication is different from those who are always distant from each other. Communication does not only refer to verbal speech but includes even human-made things. Therefore, a culture that upholds unity has a better communication network than a culture that is not united. Hall (1959) believes that communication is culture and culture is communication. Communication acts as a mode of sustaining a culture’s value systems and beliefs.

What are spatial needs, and how do they impact health assessment and the delivery of healthcare?

Spatial needs comprise the geographical variations in a population. People are not always evenly distributed across the surface of the earth. Also, there are many community disparities, which might affect the delivery and assessment of healthcare. These disparities include gender, age, economic status, and culture. The mentioned population factors affect the way people access healthcare services by influencing their traveling ability. The elements also dictate resource utilization by the affected. The term "need" is multi-dimensional and reflects people's characteristics, behavior, and living and working environments. However, an analysis technique called GIS links the population's diverse layers and environmental information to identify the vast health care dimensions of small areas. Health care access is people's ability to use health services at the time of need. Therefore, aspects of health care get influenced by the quality and type of available services in a local area. Also, the time, distance, ease of travel, and cost influence how those services get accessed. In the case of medical conditions requiring regular monitoring by physicians, distance and travel time can act as obstacles to effective service delivery. The main essence of using GIS is to create better geographical measures and analyze geographical inequalities that lie along economic and social lines.

What kind of cultural implications do body movement and position convey?

The systematic study of body movement as a nonverbal means of communication is referred to as Kinesis. While the mouth articulates words verbally, the body expresses messages through gestures, posture, facial expression, and motion quality. These body expressions follow a structured model that is relevant to the verbal voice. Kinesics is dependent on the context under discussion, and therefore all body movements must get interpreted concerning the discussion context. As mentioned earlier, body movements move hand in hand with the words. Ekman and Friesen (2004) stated that no expression, position, or movement ever conveys meaning by itself. Therefore, it is not right to give the same degree of significance to gestures and words. The most important thing to do is to interpret the kinesis movement and dependent on the verbal message and the discussion context.

Two American psychologists, Ekman and Friesen (2004), divided Kinesics into five broad areas. These categories were: emblems, manipulators, illustrators, emotional expressions, and regulators (Ekman & Friesen, 2004). Emblems are almost similar to words because they possess a specific meaning familiar to all members of a culture. However, though being multicultural, emblems are also non-universal. This non-universality makes them very sensitive and should be used with caution in different parts of the globe. For example, the 'thumbs up' emblem that implies approval, agreement, or liking. This gesture gets used in most parts of the world, but in some regions such as the Middle East, South America, and West Africa, the gesture has some offensive and obscene meaning. Another emblem that raises differences between cultures is the 'beckoning finger or palm.' This gesture turns out offensive in Asia since it is only used on animals and not humans. In the Philippines, the gesture can warrant an arrest. As seen from the examples mentioned, different body movements get interpreted differently in various cultures. Therefore, precaution is vital while using body movements.

How do different cultures express societal roles and gender roles within their culture?

Culture influences thinking, human behavior, and language. The social environment where individuals get born and spend their life helps in transforming their emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral reactions. The environment also has an influence on the perceptions of the surrounding. The same case applies to assumed societal roles based on sex. Mostly, cultures express gender as well as societal roles through communication. Every culture has got norms that apply to different individuals based on their societal class and gender. Similarly, the duties or tasks entitled to each gender differs from culture to culture. For example, in the African setting, most cultures believe that building, looking after livestock, etc. are masculine duties while cooking, and house chores are feminine. Although some of these notions are fading away, most people still believe in the same.

However, in other cultures such as the Netherlands, the woman is in control of the family. The Netherlands is a feminine culture compared to different cultures where the man is the head of the family. One factor that has advocated for gender equality in recent years is education. For example, in Africa, the girl child was not receiving formal education just because she would get married and leave the family. But due to advancement in school, the African girl child has risen to higher ranks just like the male child. Nowadays, gender roles are not being shared as in the past decades when education was privileged to the male child alone. Ladies are taking up delicate roles such as bank managers and prestigious governmental positions. Through their leadership, they have proven that with equal opportunities, both men and women are the same.

How can understanding the family unit a patient prove to be helpful?

Health care staff and clinicians work tirelessly to take care of their patients in a complex, stressful, and inefficient working environment. Nurses and clinicians may not provide adequate support to a patient without family members' influence. There is usually a strong bond between a patient and his family compared to the health care personnel. Therefore, the family unit plays an essential role in ensuring the recovery of a patient. In most cases, health care providers and clinicians work under incentives, structures, and cultural systems that are poor and do not guarantee their support to the patient as their priority. The statement means that, when patients, caregivers, the public, and the family unit fully and actively participate in caregiving, the health of the patient gets improved.

What role does religion play in the treatment of individuals?

In past centuries, physicians and religious leaders played almost the same role. Sick people who needed medical assistance did not seek the services of a doctor. They, in turn, found services from a religious guider. However, in recent centuries, society has created a separation between the church and medicine. Today, the divide between religion and medicine is that some individuals turn to faith to get knowledge over medical decisions. For people seeking attention, they can apply their religious beliefs to get guidance concerning their healthcare arrangements, including the type of physician to visit, their modesty, treatment schedule, and diet.

Also, individuals seeking health care can apply religion by having faith that the medication or prescription will solve their problem. For some religions, prayer is a crucial requirement that may have effects on the treatment schedules. It is essential for health care providers to respect, mind, and be empathetic of a patient's spiritual needs. Some patients feel comforted and calmed when they turn to their beliefs during tempting health times. So, for clinicians and physicians handling patients with personal spiritual beliefs, they have to be careful of the patient's needs to ensure adequate health care delivery.

How can knowledge of religious beliefs help you become more competent?

In the case of clinicians or caregivers, understanding a patient's beliefs helps deliver quality health care. Some patients have opinions that go against a doctor's prescriptions, and thus the physician must analyze the patient's preferences to give the right medicine. The beliefs, values, and behaviors of a patient are shaped by gender, ethnicity, language, mental ability, occupation, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, race, and socioeconomic status. Therefore, for healthcare providers to become more competent, they should provide a platform for patients to discuss their spiritual and religious beliefs. After acquiring the necessary information, health professionals should tailor their treatment and evaluation to meet the patient's specific needs.