Admission to Hospital

5. Communicating competently with Patients

Nurses in many countries across the world work with people from different cultures and backgrounds, this highlights the need for nurses to understand and respect cultural differences, in order to communicate competently with all their patients. Greetings differ greatly from culture to culture and what is acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another.

Alex has spent his whole life in Portugal, he has lived there and studied in Porto and the furthest he has travelled was on holiday to Spain. He has never looked after a patient from Eastern Europe before.

In this next video you could see how Alex interacts with Maria and how some of Alex’s actions triggered Maria and her husbands’ thoughts.

View the video

Alex: Good-morning, are you Maria Silva?

Maria: Yes, yes, that’s me!

Alex: I am nurse Alex and I will be taking care of you during this shift, until 2:00 p.m.

Maria:(Thinks) Why did he not shake my hand. Is this normal behaviour?

Maria's Husband:(Thinks) What is this nurse doing? He hasn't looked at me, he is ignoring me.