Culturally sensitive practice

To best provide culturally sensitive practice to clients who are taking medications as part of the intervention process, social workers need to take the following steps. 

On a more practical level, pharmacists also should strive to provide patient educational materials that are written at a low literacy level. The National Work Group on Literacy and Health recommends that materials should be at the fifth-grade level or lower, yet most patient education materials are written at the eleventh-grade level. Patient education materials should be short, simple, and contain culturally sensitive graphics. Easy-to-read written materials should be combined with verbal instructions, which ideally should be repeated on several different occasions to reinforce patient understanding. Involving family members in the patient education process also can promote adherence. 

An extensive literature documents persistent differences in health outcomes between ethnic minorities and white Americans. These disparities include differences in health care access and utilization as well as health status and outcomes. Wolinsky showed that differences in access and use of health services by various ethnic groups stems in part from their varying cultural traditions. Pharmacists can assist in closing this gap in health outcomes by providing culturally sensitive patient care. Information about patients cultural health care beliefs and practices is essential for devising interven-... 

Dziegielewski, S. F., Leon, A. M., Green, C. E. (1998). African American children A culturally sensitive model for group practice. Early Child Development and Care, 147, 83-97. 

How do we take cultural usability into account While e-learning is by practice global, it has to be culturally sensitive to learner s unique environment. How do we reconcile the need for cultural localization with the requirement for universally consistent e-learning content ... 

Cultural competency imperatives and mandates in school mental health clinical practices can be used to inform and drive the system. Until cultural sensitivity, relevancy of services, and cultural competency are fully understood and embraced, culturally appropriate services may be lacking for increasingly diverse communities within schools. An understanding and appreciation of services that culturally exclude contrasted to school-based mental health services that culturally include are highly relevant. What follows are a description of both exclusive and inclusive mental health practices and the author s stance of culturally responsive and effective mental health care in schools. 

Gram stain, culture, and sensitivities of ear fluid if draining spontaneously or obtained via tympanocentesis (not performed routinely in practice)... 

Rapid intestinal transit may result in a false-positive breath test, in particular when hyperosmolar nonabsorbable substrates are used. A false-negative outcome in patients with culture-proven Gram-negative bacilli in the upper gut further query the sensitivity and usefulness of breath tests for clinical practice [10-13]. Positive microbial culture from small intestine is thus advantageous when major alterations of clinical management are considered. 

For both the Saint-Lawrence River Action Plan (Costan et al., 1993) and the Toyama Bay Japanese (Kusui and Blaise, 1999) studies, the two suites of bioassays employed represented three trophic levels (decomposers, primary producers and primary or secondary consumers), and sought to measure both acute and chronic toxicity. Toxicity tests were selected on the basis of practical and scientific criteria including low sample volume requirement, sensitivity, simplicity of undertaking the assay, ease in maintaining laboratory cultures, cost-effectiveness, procedural reliability and/or frequency of use internationally. 

In flow calorimeters, samples of a culture grown in a bioreactor are continuously pumped through the measuring cell of a microcalorimeter. The sensitivity of the differential signal between the reaction vessel and the reference vessel is comparable to that obtained from microcalorimetry, e.g. [193]. From a practical point of view, they are quite flexible because they can be connected to any reactor but, due to transfer times in the minute(s) range, gas and substrate limitations must be considered. 

Mounting electrodes in a bioreactor is costly, and there is an additional contamination risk for sensitive cell cultures. Some other sensors of practical importance are those for dissolved oxygen and for dissolved carbon dioxide. The analysis of gas exiting from a bioreactor with an infrared unit that detects carbon dioxide or a paramagnetic unit that detects oxygen (after carbon dioxide removal) has been replaced by mass spectrophotometry. Gas chromatographic procedures coupled with a mass spectrophotometer will detect all the volatile components. 

Nurses and other health care professionals may be called away from their commumties to care for children following disasters or public health emergencies. They may find themselves in a new culture, with beliefs and practices different than their own. Health care professionals must be sensitive to and respectful of the culture... 

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