Establishing a bond with clients of different cultures

In nursing, it is well known that establishing a successful nurse/client relationship depends on the nurse's ability to promote a bond of trust between them (Arnold & Boggs, 1995). A home care nurse working with a client from a different culture will need to be mindful and take the extra steps mentioned in this and other articles. Such steps will help promote this bond of trust and aid the nurse in providing more culturally competent care. However, because every person is unique, these same approaches and structured questions can be asked of all patients. To do so will enable the nurse to have a more complete understanding of each patient's health care beliefs, practices, and decision-making strategies. As has been shown through the case studies presented, gaining a more thorough understanding of the patient and his/her family's health care beliefs is critical to achieving cost-effective and clinically positive outcomes. In each of the examples discussed, if these cultural assessments had not been performed, more nursing resources and longer-term service would have been required.