Heritage assessment in nursing

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Health - Nursing Science - Miscellaneous, grade: B, New York University, language: English, abstract: Heritage assessment tool in nursing is an essential component in the field of medicine and health. It is a tool used to assess, maintain and restore individual¿s culture and beliefs. Heritage assessment tools play a key role of helping health care and service providers assess and evaluate the cultural health methods (Viginia & Catana, 2010). All individuals living in a community have their heritage which is different from culture. These types of traditional health assessment majorly deal with peoples spiritual, mental and physical beliefs. Communities have varieties of beliefs on death, illness, health and diseases. In most of the societies, health is termed as a complete balance between an individual¿s mind, body, spirit and family in relation to other external forces of the world. All this beliefs play important roles in heritage assessment because they give a holistic approach for addressing this issue. It helps both the health provider and the patient to find an effective and efficient communication that will enhance health (Philos, 2010).

The ultimate goal of heritage assessment in nursing is to collect information about the various beliefs that will establish traditional competence among the health care providers. Traditional and cultural health methods are used in health maintenance, health protection and health restoration. Health maintenance can be termed as designed approach of preventing a disease and promote health. Health protection is a tool used to give an explanation of how individuals maintain their health on a daily routine. Health restoration is the act of restoring an individual¿s health to its maximum level. This paper is going to investigate three families. It is going to lay out how the family¿s beliefs on health have impact on well being and how health providers can effectively handle such situations (Nunnery, 2012).