Abstract

Objective: Cultural differences; the individual’s life conditions, neighbourhood, income level, education, values/beliefs, differences in practice and attitude affect health and disease. It is important to define cultural differences and to be aware of cultural elements when planning nursing care for providing holistic care. In this study, nursing care was planned by considering the cultural characteristics of R., an 11-year-old Roman (kind of Turkish race) diagnosed with lymphoma.

Case report: ‘Guide to diagnose cultural characteristics in nursing care’ was used for R.’ care. The guide was developed by Tanrıverdi et al. (2009) and consists of four topics: individual characteristics, communication characteristics, family and social roles, health and disease practices. According to the these topics, Spiritual distress, Conflict in decision making, Distortion in the definition of individual identity, Situational low self-esteem, Impairment in verbal communication, Impairment of social interaction, Social isolation, Impairment of continuity of family processes, Deterioration in the context of parent-child, Inability to parent, Inability to cope, Risk of infection, Distortion of sleep pattern, Ineffectiveness in maintaining health, Nutrition pattern ineffectiveness, Ineffective in conducting own health, Self-care deficit syndrome were thought for nursing diagnosis of R. Nursing care was given within the scope of these diagnoses.

Conclusion: Nurses should be able to identify the cultural characteristics underlying health and illness behaviours in order to provide the desired care to the individual, family and society. For this reason, it is important for nurses to recognize patients culturally in the care process.