8 Best Ways to Increase Cultural Competence in Pharmacy Practice - aPHP
- SARMLife
- Nov 23, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 18
Pharmacy Practice
Summary: Cultural competence in pharmacy practice fuels trust, drives adherence, and cuts through disparities. With every patient touchpoint, pharmacists shape outcomes. This piece presents bold strategies grounded in cultural and structural humility, essential tools for delivering care that respects, reflects, and transforms community health.
Cultural competence in pharmacy practice is no longer an ‘advised-to-have’ skill; it has become a ‘need-to-have’ pharmacy skill for everyday practice.
According to a report in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, nearly 90% of Americans have a pharmacy within a five-mile radius of their home. This shows how much contact a pharmacist has with the general public.
With this much exposure to people from different cultural backgrounds, pharmacists must learn to understand and respect each culture and its influence on individual patients’ medical decisions.
Additionally, cultural competence is a legal requirement for all pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. According to the Equality Act 2010, religion and beliefs, which make up a person’s culture, are among the nine protected characteristics against which it is illegal to discriminate.
This blog post will examine the need for culturally competent pharmacists, the benefits, and strategies to enhance cultural competence in pharmacy practice.
What is Cultural Competence?
Cultural competence can be defined as a person’s ability to understand and effectively interact with people from different cultural backgrounds.
It involves acknowledging and respecting a person’s cultural identity and their decisions based on it.
Why Is There a Need for
Culturally Competent Pharmacists?
There are different reasons why there is a surge in the need for culturally competent pharmacists, including:
Increasing Diversity of the US Population.
The United States is a country whose population continues to diversify at rising rates.
Apart from the influx of people from other countries and cultures, some citizens change their cultural beliefs after certain exposures.
People from diverse backgrounds and cultures will likely have differences in health beliefs, practices, and preferences.
Because of this, there is an increase in the need for culturally competent pharmacists who can understand, interact with, and respect these diversities. They can provide culturally acceptable and medically appropriate ways to navigate these differences.
Existence of Health Disparities.
Health disparities have to do with avoidable differences in the health outcomes of people from different groups.
Cultural differences contribute to these health disparities, and by having culturally competent pharmacists attend to patients, health disparities resulting from cultural orientation can be reduced.
Pharmacy Practice is Incomplete Without Cultural Competence.
Effective pharmacy practice aims to provide comprehensive care to address a patient’s pharmaceutical needs.
However, one is unable to provide comprehensive care to a patient without understanding the factors that influence the patient’s medical decisions, including cultural beliefs.
This is why cultural competence is a necessary skill in becoming an effective pharmacist.
Benefits of Cultural Competence in Pharmacy Practice
Here are some benefits of cultural competence in pharmacy practice:
Enhanced Patient-Pharmacist Relationships.
Taking the time and effort to understand and respect a patient’s cultural differences helps foster a strong patient-pharmacist relationship. It allows the patient to feel heard and understood, especially for those who have faced prior differences in the quality of care they received due to cultural differences.
Cultural competence also builds rapport and helps the patient comfortably communicate the challenges they are experiencing regarding their medications and overall health.
Increases Medication Adherence.
A patient’s cultural beliefs affect how they think about their medications. For example, a patient might prefer to use herbal medicines or religious practices to deal with a diagnosis instead of adhering to Western traditional medicine practices.
A culturally competent pharmacist who understands this helps the patient create a treatment plan based on their beliefs, offer personalized medication counseling, or educate the patient on how some drugs are made from naturally occurring compounds found in plants.
A patient is more likely to follow a treatment regimen when it shows respect and support for their cultural and religious beliefs.
Improves Patient Satisfaction.
Respecting a patient’s cultural beliefs and providing personalized care tailored to their culture are essential for increasing patient satisfaction.
Also, when the level and quality of care they receive are not affected by their cultural diversity but focused on providing fair opportunities for their health, patients are satisfied and more likely to complete their treatment regimen and return when needed.
Enhances Patient Outcomes.
Providing patients with personalized care tailored to their cultural backgrounds has a significant impact on health outcomes. Patients are more likely to comply with medication instructions, show up for refills, and complete their entire treatment plan.
Promotes Health Equity.
Enhancing patient outcomes in a diverse population through cultural competence is vital to promoting health equity.
Cultural competence also helps address the root causes of health disparities, often rooted in cultural differences and socioeconomic factors.
Gives You a Competitive Advantage.
The demand for pharmacists with trending skills is rising in today’s highly competitive pharmacy industry.
Being culturally competent will give you a competitive edge and put you in high demand in the market.
How to Increase Cultural
Competence in Pharmacy Practice
Increasing cultural competence in pharmacy practice is a huge responsibility. However, here are some practical ways that it can be achieved:
Examine Your Cultural Background.
The first step in increasing cultural competence in pharmacy practice is to conduct a self-assessment of your current skills—an approach grounded in cultural humility. This mindset fosters ongoing self-reflection, acknowledges personal biases, and recognizes the power dynamics within healthcare. It also aligns with structural humility, which involves understanding how systems, not just individuals, contribute to health inequities and patient experiences.
Understanding your level of cultural competency and being aware of your personal biases will enhance your sensitivity and mindfulness when interacting with patients from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Learn About Your Patient’s Culture.
Arthur Kleinman was the first person to propose the concept of an explanatory model for patients.
This patient explanatory model consists of eight questions that a pharmacist may ask patients to assess their understanding of their condition, the personal or social meaning they attribute to it, and their expectations of their treatment regimen.
Asked in order, they are:
What do you call your problem? What name does it have?
What do you think caused your problem?
Why do you think it started when it did?
What does your sickness do to you? How does it work?
How severe is it? Will it have a short or long course?
What do you fear most about your disorder?
What are the chief problems that your sickness has caused for you?
What kind of treatment do you think you should receive? What are the most important results you hope to receive from treatment?
Recognize the Cultural Differences.
Culture is not static; it is subjective and evolves constantly. One of the main points of cultural competence is understanding and respecting an individual’s cultural beliefs.
It is crucial to recognize individual differences, as sharing a cultural background hardly means individuals hold the same beliefs or engage in the same practices. A person is a combination of their culture and their life experiences.
Leverage Professional Development Training.
One of healthcare professionals’ key obligations is to commit to ongoing professional development to stay abreast of relevant changes that affect patient outcomes and enhance relevant pharmacy skills.
Cultural competence training programs are introduced to educate pharmacy trainees and personnel about diverse cultures, raise awareness, increase sensitivity, and develop standard procedures for dealing with volatile scenarios.
Negotiate Culturally Specific Therapeutic Plans.
Some cultures may have preconceived ideas regarding the medical system and the use of medications.
When a pharmacist encounters this group of people, it is usually helpful to educate them without judgment or in a condescending way.
Pharmacists negotiate a safe treatment plan with patients, considering their cultural background and addressing their specific pharmaceutical needs.
Leverage Culturally-Based Resources in Your Community.
Culturally based resources are medical resources that reflect the unique cultural diversity of the community, such as the language, local slang, or culturally relatable images.
Pharmacists seeking to enhance their cultural competence utilize these resources when interacting with patients. It might be as simple as hanging a medical illustration in the local language or greeting the patient in the local dialect.
When you leverage culturally based resources, you automatically communicate to the patient that they are in a safe space where their culture is acknowledged and respected.
This opens up the patient, who will feel free to express their medical concerns and worries. Additionally, they will be more than willing to pay attention and try out your medical suggestions or advice.
Use a Trained Interpreter.
Establishing an effective method of communication is a challenge when servicing patients with low English proficiency or when assigned to a non-English-speaking community.
However, it is encouraged to use interpreters to overcome communication difficulties. The interpreters should be trained and used only when necessary.
Pharmacists might consider learning the local way of greeting or how to have basic conversations in the patient’s local language to enhance the flow of communication between the patient and the pharmacist.
Be Sincere.
One of the barriers and causes of anxiety when it comes to cultural competence is feeling like you do not have the right words or phrases that are culturally relevant. For example, you might mispronounce or misaddress a person in a way deemed insulting or disrespectful in their culture.
This is where sincerity comes into play. You can express your lack of confidence in pronouncing a name or addressing someone.
A simple statement like, “Can you help me with the pronunciation of your name? I want to get it right.” or “How would you like to be addressed?” can go a long way in preventing a mishap.
Conclusion
Cultural competence in pharmacy practice enhances patient outcomes and fosters stronger pharmacist-patient relationships.
It also helps to increase medication adherence and reduce health disparities in pharmacy practice.
Community pharmacists are at the forefront of increasing cultural competence in pharmacy practice because they interact frequently and closely with individuals in their local communities.
By leveraging culturally sensitive health resources, health literacy can be improved among the local community, empowering people to make informed medical decisions.
Cultural competence is a skill that can be built, and understanding the need, benefits, and ways to improve this skill can be a game-changer in your pharmacy practice.
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