Cultural Humility: An Active Concept to Drive Correctional Nursing Practice

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Cultural Competence
• Correctional Health

Background:

• Correctional nursing serves a unique patient population with distinct ethnicities and an imposed prison culture.
• Holistic care necessitates consideration of cultural factors within the correctional environment.
• Madeleine Leininger's Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality emphasizes culture as central to nursing care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the application of cultural humility in correctional nursing practice.
• To describe how cultural humility can guide nursing actions within the unique context of corrections.

Main Methods:

• Discussion and theoretical application of cultural humility principles.
• Analysis of Leininger's nursing actions in the context of correctional custody.

Main Results:

• Leininger's direct nursing actions (maintain, accommodate, repattern culture) may be challenging in correctional settings.
• Cultural humility emerges as a foundational attitude for providing culturally competent care to inmates.
• Cultural humility offers a feasible approach for correctional nurses to navigate cultural diversity and imposed prison culture.

Conclusions:

• Cultural humility is essential for effective and ethical nursing care in correctional facilities.
• Adopting an attitude of cultural humility can enhance the quality of care provided to incarcerated individuals.
• This approach supports culturally competent care despite the constraints of the correctional environment.