1. Introductions of Cultural Variations in Health
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Higher Education
Prince Sattam University
College of Nursing
1438 H
Introductions of Cultural Variations in Health
Dr Marietta Mercado

2. Objectives: By the end of this lecture, the student will be able to:
Define the concept of culture.
Identify the main concept related to culture.
Discuses the components of culture and provide examples for each of them.
Analyze how culture components interrelated. 

Discuses the characteristic of culture.

4. Introduction
We live a society that is made up of widely diverse groups of people. The group include people of different ethnic. The number of culture groups within the population continues to increase.

5. Introduction
Culture is an integral component of both health and illness. Nurses must be sensitive to the culture needed, characteristics ,and values of individual ,families and groups.

6. Culture:
Broadly defines set of values, norms, beliefs and traditions, that are held by a specific group of people and learned, shared and transmitted from generation to generation

10. Main Concepts related to culture:
Society
The community, nation, or broad grouping of people living in a particular country or region and having shared customs, laws, and organizations
Cultural Sensitivity
The ability to be open to learning about and accepting of different cultural groups.

11. Main Concepts related to culture:
Culture – universals
Commonalities of values, norms of behavior, and life patterns that are similar among different cultures
Culture – specifies
Values, beliefs, and patterns of behavior that tend to be unique to a designate culture.

12. Main Concepts related to culture:
Material culture
Refers to objects (dress, art, religious).
Non-material culture
Refers to beliefs, customs, languages, and social institutions.

13. Main Concepts related to culture:
Trans culture nursing
The study of the life ways and patterns of persons of various cultures including their healthcare practices and nursing’s role in that culture.
Cross Cultural Nursing
The study of the life ways and patterns of persons of various cultures from an anthropological perspective that is being applied to nursing

14. Main Concepts related to culture:
Cultural Identity
The sense of being part of an ethnic group or culture.
Subculture
Composed of people who have a distinct identity but are related to a larger cultural group.

15. Main Concepts related to culture:
Cultural shock
Is defined as a psychological disorientation that most people experience when living in a culture markedly different from one’s own.

19. In Saudi Arabia???

20. Importance of Culture:
Culture provides us with:
A sense of belonging
A sense of identity
A feeling of cohesiveness
A sense of connectedness to those who came before and to those who will come after.

21. Culture Component: Symbols Language Valuse and Belief Norms
Material culture

22. 1-Symbols:
Are defined as anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share culture. The meaning of the same symbols varies from society to society, within a single society, and over time.

23. 2-Language:
Is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another. It can be either written or spoken or both
Language is the key to cultural transmission, the process by which one generation passes culture to the next.
Through most of human history, cultural transmission has been accomplished through oral tradition.

24. 3-Valuse and Belief:
Are culturally defined standards by which people judge desirability, goodness and beauty, and which serve as broad guidelines for social living
Values are broad principles that underlie beliefs, specific statements that people hold to be true. Belief define as Specific statements that people to be true, example:(relationship between god and human)

25. 4- Norms:
Norms are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. It is standards that define the obligatory and expected behaviors of people in various situations.

26. Types of Norms
Mores
Laws
Folkways
Rituals

27. Types of Norms
M: (They are customary behavior patterns or folkways which have taken on a moralistic value.)
Manner, and habit
Laws: (Laws are the mores deemed so vital to dominant interests that they become translated into legal formations that even nonmembers of society are required to obey.)

28. Types of Norms
Folkways: (These are behavior patterns of society which are organized and repetitive, commonly known as customs.)
Rituals: (These are highly scripted ceremonies or strips of interaction that follow a specific sequence of actions.)
a series of actions or type of behavior regularly followed by someone.

29. 5- Material culture
Human make objects, sometimes for practical reasons, and sometimes for artistic ones. The form and function of these objects is an expression of culture and culturally defines behavior often depends on the presence of specific objects. We call such objects material culture.

30. Factors barrier to the culture component:
1-Traditions of handling personal problem that don’t fit this particular problem, ex: herbal meds, using of honey in treating DM. 2-Beliefs about the causes of disorder and the appropriate healer for it, ex: doctor, nurse.

31. Factors barrier to the culture component:
3-Lack of knowledge about a physical or emotional disorder and the formal place to preventing and treating the condition, ex: paying for emergency care rather than spending money on health promotion or primary prevention. 4-Language barrier.

32. Factors barrier to the culture component:
5-Difficulty in maintaining confidentiality. 6- Misinterpretation of behavior associated with space orientation. 7-Previous experience (negative) with health care system and providers.

33. Characteristics of culture:
(1) Culture is an adaptive mechanism
(2) Culture is learned
(3) Culture is change (Dynamic)
(4) Culture is multifaceted

34. Characteristics of culture:
(5) People Usually are not Aware of their culture
(6) We do not know All of Our Own culture
(7) Culture Give Us a Range of Permissible Behavior Patterns
(8) Cultures No Longer Exist in Isolation

35. Purposes of Knowing the Patient Culture for health care personal:

36. Cultural background
basic human needs.
To heighten awareness of ways in which their own faith system.
To foster understanding, respect and appreciation for the individuality and diversity of patient.
To strengthen in their commitment to relationship-centered medicine
To encourage in developing and maintaining a program of physical, emotional and spiritual self-care introduce therapies.

37. Doing
Surface Culture 10%
Thinking
Deep Culture 90%
Feeling

38. Surface Culture 10% Deep Culture 90% Behaviors Doing Traditions
Customs
Doing
Core values
Beliefs
Priorities
Attitudes
Assumptions
Perceptions
Thinking
Deep Culture 90%
Feeling

39. Easy to observe with vision, touch, taste, smell, sound,
Surface Culture 10%
Easy to observe with vision, touch, taste, smell, sound,
Ways of life
Laws and customs
Institutions
Methods and Techniques
Rituals
Language
Art Dance
Food Dress/clothingLanguage
Greetings Music
Doing
World view Religious beliefs Authority Decision-making models
Gender roles Ideas about leadership Concepts of justice
Concepts of time Power Personal space Body language
Communication
Friendship Designation of status based on positions (e.g.,age, gender, job)
Norms
Roles
Ideologies
Beliefs
Philosophy
Thinking
Values
Tastes
Attitudes
Desires
Assumptions
Expectations
Myths
Feeling
Deep Culture 90%
Difficult to observe

40. Next lecture,,,
The influence of culture on health beliefs on health care practice
Culture shock
Culture refers to the beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that, together, form a people's way of life.
Culture determines how we view the world around us
Culture includes the traditions we inherit and pass on to the next generation
Culture: totality of our shared language, knowledge, material objects, and behavior

42. Reference: 1-Boyle, JS: The practice of trans cultural nursing, Trans cultural Nursing Morgenstern, J: Rites of birth, marriage, death, and kindred occasions. 2-Talor C, Lillis C&Lemone P.(1997)Culture and ethnicity. Fundamentals of nursing the art and science of nursing( 3rd ed).(pp.33-46) Lippincott Williams &wilkins, United states of America