Culture shapes nursing practice: Findings from a New Zealand study

Abstract

Objectives: This paper reports research undertaken to investigate nurses' and parents' experiences of communication about parental emotions in a hospital setting, with a focus on the environmental and cultural context within which the communication occurs.

Methods: A focused ethnography was employed as the aims were to understand the context within which nurse-parent interaction takes place, by exploring cultural factors, such as ways of living affecting nursing communication. Data collection occurred in a children's unit of a New Zealand hospital, involving 260h of participant observation field work, informal interviews with parents and nurses, followed by 20 formal interviews with nurses and parents.

Results: Nurses are cultural brokers, with the potential to be a link between the insider culture, the hospital and the outside, the parents. Parents look to nurses for cultural brokerage, to help them cross the strong cultural boundaries present in a hospital unit.

Conclusion: The context and culture of a hospital unit influences nurse-parent communication. There is a disconnection between parents' emotional needs in hospital and nurses' ability to meet those needs.

Practice implications: Nurses must be supported to provide effective cultural brokerage for parents. Unit managers need to acknowledge that meeting parents' diverse needs is vital.

Keywords: Child; Communication; Culture; Emotions; Hospital; Nurse; Parent.