For Whom and Why Does Social Context Matter in Medicine
For Whom and Why Does Social Context Matter in Medicine
Social context refers to the social setting an event happens. It includes the natural and artificial environment in which an event takes places. Social factors have an influence on events that take place including provision of healthcare. This paper has explores whether social context applies to the medical field. The paper reveals that social context matters in medicine because it influences communication. Communication is an essential element within the medical setting. One essential element of the social context is culture. Culture refers to a compilation of beliefs, values and practices that define a particular social group. Culture affects communication by affecting how individuals interpret information. This paper reveals that social context matters because it affects the decision making process within the medical setting. Decision making is also an essential process with the healthcare setting. However, the process of making decisions is subject to the way of thinking of individual. Social context also matters because it influences health beliefs. While biological factors are central in influencing the medical field, social factors play a significant role in defining people’s beliefs concerning sickness, origin of sickness and best mode of treatment.
Social Context and Communication
Social context matters because it influences communication within the health care setting. Communication entails passing information from one party to another. Communication is an essential process in healthcare (Plutchik, 2000). Physician needs to communicate with patient in order to take the patient history. The physician may not be able to make an accurate diagnosis without effective communication. Physicians also need to communicate the result of the diagnostic process to the patient. Physician also needs to communicate to the patient the alternative interventions. Physicians also need effective communication skills in order to enhance deliver prescription and make follow-up on patients. These forms of communication between the physical and patients are referred to as therapeutic communication.Social context is an essential determinant of communication.
The process of communication entails three essential steps; encoding of information; conveying information, and decoding information (Plutchnik, 2000). Encoding is the process of converting a message into forms that can be conveyed from one person to the other. After encoding, the sender conveys the information to the recipient. Decoding refers to how the recipient of information interprets the message received in order to derive meaning. Social context affect communication by affecting the process of decoding information.Culture affects how individuals interpret the world around them. If affects how individual construct meaning from observation, events or phenomena (Happen, 2009). Thus, the social context has the potential of affecting how an individual interpret information. For instance, a word in may have one meaning in a certain cultural background and a different meaning in another cultural group.
Thus, failing to understand the differences in the social context may result in miscommunication between the two parties. The person receiving the information may derive a meaning that is different from that which the sender of the information intended.Thus, cultural context matters much in health communication. Without consideration of the social context, communication between the doctor and patients would be ineffective (Happen, 2009). Thus, promoting cultural communication is a vital aspect in promoting the quality of health care. Cultural competence refers to the ability to understand how cultural elements affect human interactions. Considering social context enables medical practitioners to create enhanced relationships with their patients. Thus, the patients benefit from improved care. The first step in promoting cultural competence is promoting self awareness. Self awareness refers to understanding of oneself (Association of American Medical College, 2011).
Individuals need to understand himself in order for him to become culturally competent. One aspect that a person needs to understand about oneself is self concept. Self concept refers to what an individual thinks about himself. It has to do with a person self esteem and self imagine. Self esteem and self image determine how an individual interpret information. Another element that an individual should understand is cultural beliefs and values (Association of American Medical College, 2011). An individual also needs to understand how beliefs and values may affect communication between him and others.
An individual also needs to understand stereotypes and misconceptions that may hinder effective communication with members of other cultural groups.The second step towards enhancing cultural competence is to understand other people. Educator needs to understand their students in order to communicate with them effectively (Science Daily, 2011). One aspect that educator should focus on understanding is the personal attribute of students. This includes their needs, strengths and weakness. The educator also needs to understand their students’ cultures. This includes understanding the students’ beliefs, values and practices, and how these elements affect communication. The educator also needs to understand cultural stereotypes and misconception that may affect the students’ interpretation of information.
Social Context and Decision Making
Social context matters because it also influences decision making. Decision making is a vital aspect of care delivery (Association of American Medical College, 2011). Healthcare practitioners make decisions every day concerning various health issues. This include whether to admit a patient or not, whether to perform a procedure on a patient or not. Human beings make decisions after analyzing information that relate to the issue at hand. However, the process of analyzing information is subjected to the way of thinking of the individual. This implies that since culture is a determinant of individuals’ way of thinking, it is, therefore, a significant determinant of individual decision making process. Thus, physicians need to be aware of their social context in order to make the most appropriate decision.
Impact of personal values on Decision Making
Personal values are some of the cultural elements that affect the decision making process of individuals. Value refers to principles that define what is acceptable to an individual (Association of American Medical College, 2011). Medical practitioners use these values while making medical decisions. There are values that are universal. For instance, honesty is one of the values that are universal. However, there is a wide array of values that are subjective. This means that they change from one person to another or from one society to the next. Using these values to make medical decisions can sometimes raise questions concerning the accuracy of the decisions. This is especially so when the practitioners and the patients share a different set of values.For instance, a doctor may be a religious person and, therefore, holds the belief that abortion is illegal. However, the morality of abortion is hard to determine because people have interpreted this issue from a different perspective. Some interprets this issue from the perspective of the child right to live while others interpret this issue from the perspective of the mother’s freedom of choice. Thus, it may raise serious questions if the doctor uses his values to impose decisions on patients. Thus, practitioners need to be aware of how personal values can affect decision making in order to avoid such scenarios.
Impact of Stereotypes on Decision Making
Stereotyping is also cultural elements that have an impact on the decision making process of individuals (Burgess & Warren, 2010). A stereotype is a general assumption concerning a group of people. These assumptions are often inaccurate presentation of the group of people. Racial stereotyping is the most common types of stereotyping in healthcare. Healthcare practitioners often hold an assumption that members of minority races have inferior state of health. This stereotyping has significant psychological impact on the health behaviors of individuals.Stereotype has a potential impact on adherence to treatment (Burgess & Warren, 2010). Studies reveal that stereotypes may lower adherence to treatment by reducing the level of self efficacy.
When practitioners hold a stereotype that members of certain groups are of low intelligence then they encourage the development of negative attitude towards treatment. They make members of this community lose self control and self efficacy. It also reduces the motivation of the members of this community to adhere to treatment.Stereotype affects care delivery by affecting communication between doctor and patients. Victims of stereotypes suffer from physiological arousal and anxiety (Burgess & Warren, 2010). This is likely to affect the patients’ response to questions, freedom of disclosure, fluency and communication skills. Poor communication between the medical practitioners and the patient often result in less than appropriate decision making. This affects the quality of care delivery.Stereotypes may also undermine the quality of healthcare by promoting disengagement. Stereotyping results in a negative experience for victims (Burgess & Warren, 2010).
Thus, victims tend to avoid environment in which they are stereotyped. Thus, stereotyping in the healthcare setting may push away victims from the healthcare institution thus propagating disparities in healthcare. Stereotyping may also result in the enhancement of stereotypes (Burgess & Warren, 2010). For instance, holding a stereotype that members of a certain racial group have poor state of health may reinforce this stereotype. This is because clinicians are likely to base their decisions on this assumption this leading to further disparities in healthcare.Acknowledge the social context in which they operate can assist practitioners to avoid stereotyping (Burgess & Warren, 2010). Medical practitioners need to draw out the strengths and values of communities in which they operate. Affirming the community values helps to reinforce health promoting behaviors. The practitioners should also develop high standards of health and reiterate the patients’ ability to meet these standards. The practitioners should also provide cues that the healthcare setting recognizes and value diversity.
Social Context and Health Belief
Social context matters because it also influences health belief. Health belief refers to views that people share concerning diseases, treatment and other aspect of health (Days, 2010). The social context is a significant determinant of health belief. For instance, the Native American community associates disease with spiritual matters. Members of this community try to address illness through spiritual avenues. Health beliefs affect the field of healthcare by determining the definition of illness. For instance, some communities associate diseases such as HIV with a myth or witchcraft (Days, 2010). Thus, members of this community may fail to accept that they are sick because they believe that this is not a biological disease. They may also fail to take measure for protecting themselves from getting infected because they have different views concerning the origin of the disease.
The belief may also affect accessibility to quality care by members of the community. Since, they associate the illness with spiritual issues they may resort to using spiritual interventions. In some community, infected persons are treated as outcasts because the disease is associated with spiritual matters.The health belief model attempts to explain how health belief can affect delivery of care. The model illuminates the process that shape behaviors of individuals (Days, 2010). The model suggests that individual use cost benefit analysis to decide on their behaviors. Individual considers 6 main factors while conducting the cost benefit analysis. The first factor is perceived susceptibility (Days, 2010). This refers to perceptions that individual hold concerning their exposure to certain health risk.
The model suggests that people who perceive to have low exposure to a certain health risk may become reluctant in taking measures for preventing the disease. For instance, a man may fail to see the need for taking a mammogram because he believes that men do not get cancer.The second social factor that determines health behavior is perceived severity. This refers to the belief of individuals concerning the seriousness of a certain health risk (Days, 2010). Individuals tend to overlook illness that they view as least serious. For instance, an individual may fail to see a doctor because he believes that common cold is not a serious illness. Individuals evaluate the seriousness of disease using attributes such as; pain, time lost, discomfort and economic problems.
The third factor that determines health behaviors is perceived benefits. This refers to what individual think will gain by adopting health promoting behaviors (Days, 2010). Individuals are likely to adopt health promoting behaviors if the benefits involved are significant. For instance, a mother may decide on whether to take her child for humanization based on her judgment of the perceived benefit of immunization. Thus, physician need to explain to the benefits associated with certain procedures in order to encourage acceptance.The fourth factor that determines health behaviors is perceived barriers. Individual tend to pursue health behaviors that have the least implementation barriers (Days, 2010). Individuals may shy away from health promoting behaviors that are risky.
For instance, individual may opt not to go for a medical checkup due to high costs. In this case, the high cost act as a barrier to health promoting behaviors. An individual may combine perceptions of susceptibility, severity and benefits so as to establish whether it is worthy to pursue the health procedure. The fifth factor that determines health behavior is the cue to action. Cues to actions refer to factors that motivate individuals to pursue certain actions (Days, 2010). For instance, taking cancer screening program into the neighborhoods reduces the effort that the residents require to make in order to get tested. This may encourage people to get screened for cancer. Thus, in order to promote health, stakeholders must identify cues for promoting health behaviors. The final factor that determines health behavior is self efficacy. Self efficacy refers to an individual’s ability to pursue his own goals (Days, 2010).
High sense of self efficacy may motivate an individual to pursue health promoting actions. Individual who are self driven require little external motivation in order to pursue health promoting behaviors.Beliefs are not equivalent to facts concerning a certain health issue. It refers to the perception that individuals have (Days, 2010). The perceptions are often created by cultural factors and experiences. Psychology suggests that behaviors are functions of individual perceptions. Emotional components such as fear may also promote adaption of health behaviors. Thus, social cognition is an essential skill for healthcare practitioners. Social cognition refers to the capability of individuals to analyze social situations. Since individual construct reality using their perception, understanding the social context begins by understanding individual beliefs.Beliefs may support behaviors that support health or behaviors that undermine health.
For instance, the belief by Christian that taking action that harm the body is against God’s wish promotes health. On the other hand, the belief that a certain disease is a myth promotes behaviors that undermine health (Days, 2010). Thus, medical practitioner needs to have a clear understanding of beliefs that promote health and those that undermines health. Beliefs that support health need to be enhanced. However, the practitioners need to modify the beliefs that undermine health. Beliefs are strongly entrenched into individuals (Days, 2010). However, these beliefs can be modified when individuals are presented within information that challenges the paradigms that form the basis of their beliefs. Thus, health practitioners need to conduct awareness programs in order to modify the beliefs of individuals. They need to provide a convincing explanation as to why certain beliefs are harmful to the people.
Conclusion
Social context refers to the social setting in which an event take place. This paper has evaluated the relevance of social context to the medical field. The paper concludes that social context matters in healthcare because it influences the communication process between medical practitioners and patients. Social context also matters in the medical field because it affects the decision making process of healthcare practitioners. Values and stereotypes are some of the social elements that impact on individuals’ decision making process. Social context also matters because it influences health belief. Health beliefs determine how individual define sickness and mode of treatment.
References
Association of American Medical College (2005). Cultural Competence Education. November 30, 2012. https://www.aamc.org/download/54338/data/culturalcomped.pdf
Burgess D. & Warren J. (2010). Stereotype Threat and Health Disparities. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 25 (2): 169- 177
Day S. (2010). A Review of Social Cognitive Models in Health Care. November 30, 2012. http://www.vccr.org/downloads/Literature%20Review.pdf
Happen M. (2009) Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety in Nursing Education. November 30, 2012. http://www.anac.on.ca/Documents/Making%20It%20Happen%20Curriculum%20Project/FINALFRAMEWORK.pdf
Plutchik R. (2000). Emotions in the Practice of Psychotherapy. November 30, 2012. http://www.ffri.uniri.hr/~ibrdar/komunikacija/seminari/Plutchik,%202000%20-
Science Daily (2011). Social Context Matters in Medical Teaching and Healthcare. November 30, 2012. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110412131925.htm
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