Culture sensitivity in assessing urban Native American parenting

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Child Development
• Cultural Competency in Nursing

Background:

• Assessing urban Native American (NA) parenting presents unique challenges for public health nurses.
• Existing assessment tools may not fully capture the nuances of NA parenting styles.
• Understanding cultural factors is crucial for effective public health interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS) and Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) instruments for assessing urban NA mothers and their children.
• To compare scores from urban NA mother-child dyads with established norms for these instruments.
• To identify specific parenting behaviors and cultural considerations relevant to NA families.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 63 urban Native American mother-child dyads.
• Administration of the NCATS and HOME instruments to assess parenting and the home environment.
• Comparison of obtained scores with existing instrument norms.
• Qualitative analysis of specific item responses to understand parenting techniques.

Main Results:

• Scores on HOME play and involvement subscales were lower than norms.
• Scores on NCATS total parent, clarity of cues, response to parent, and total child subscales were higher than norms.
• Mothers were less likely to structure activities but more likely to use nonverbal parenting techniques.

Conclusions:

• The NCATS and HOME instruments are useful for assessing urban NA parenting when findings are discussed with families.
• Public health nurses require awareness of diverse NA family structures and traditional values for accurate assessment.
• Culturally sensitive application of these instruments can enhance public health nursing practice with NA populations.