Abstract :
Introduction: With the growing elderly population, and increased oral health care needs, there is a need to improve geriatric health and oral health care through culturally sensitive communication and care.Objectives: To explore the concept of culturally sensitive communication in geriatric health and oral health care.Materials and Methods: A concept analysis was undertaken using Rodger’s evolutionary method of analysis. The concept including clinical practice implications were explored by a step-by-step approach. A systematic literature search was undertaken to identify papers published between Jan1987 to June 2024. A total of 1072 scientific papers were retrieved as per the search terms used on PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 46 relevant research papers were included in the analysis.Results: The concepts of cultural sensitivity, cultural consciousness, cultural intelligence, cultural competence and appropriate health communication in the context of geriatric care were defined and described in the process of synthesis. Aspects of cultural capabilities namely, respectful communication, understanding patients’ cultural backgrounds, empathetic counselling & decision making and provision of personalized care were extracted. According to this analysis, the challenges to culturally sensitive oral health communication between providers and the elderly patients were patients’ age- related sensory and cognitive problems, poor health literacy, lack of trained geriatric health and oral health care providers, economic and psycho-social factors.Conclusions: This concept analysis provides insights into the benefits and challenges in geriatric patient communication in health/ oral health care and scope for improvements, relevant to clinical practice and teaching.
Keyword :
Elderly care, Cultural sensitivity, Geriatric health