Culturally appropriate care: a qualitative exploration of service-users’ perspectives of nursing care

This research study set out to explore service-users’ understanding about what they required in terms of cultural care from nurses. Situated within an interpretive paradigm, the choices made within the methodology were influenced by the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer around dialogue and understanding. This approach facilitated a newer understanding to explore existing nursing knowledge around culturally appropriate care for a multicultural and diverse society. Having gained the appropriate ethical approval, participants were recruited from the five main ethnic groups that represented the population of Greater Manchester: White Majority, White Minority, South Asian, African-Caribbean and Chinese/Oriental. Twenty-one participants were interviewed, using a semi-structured approach. Utilising Attride-Stirling’s (2001) Thematic Network analysis, all the transcriptions were analysed to develop Basic, Organising and Global Themes, to systematise the findings and discuss the rich data that emerged. Unexpectedly, during the interviews participants from the Majority population and the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic participants expressed similar needs from culturally appropriate nursing care. Specifically, what service users needed from culturally appropriate care was linked to issues around how nurses communicated inter-culturally and the influence of intersectional processes, rather than addressing different, culturally specific needs. The participants stressed the need for nurses to utilise an individualised and non-ethnocentric manner as part of their intercultural communication and congruent interpersonal skills. In order to fulfil this in a fair and compassionate way, nurses would need to develop an openness and genuine desire to engage service users in intercultural communication, and be ready to listen, enable and be curious to learn about their story.