7 CLIENT’SRESPONSE TOILLNESS 151
help guide the planning and implementation of nurs-
ing care. Biologic and hereditary factors cannot be
changed. Others, such as interpersonal factors, can
be changed but only with difficulty. For instance,
helping a client to develop a social support system
requires more than simply giving him or her a list
of community contacts. The client needs to feel that
these resources are valuable to him or her; must per-
ceive them as helpful, responsive, and supportive;
and must be willing to use them.
Nurses with limited experience in working with
various ethnic groups may feel anxious when encoun-
tering someone from a different cultural background
and worry about saying “the wrong thing” or doing
something offensive or disrespectful to the client or
family. Nurses may have stereotypical concepts about
some ethnic groups and be unaware of them until
they encounter a client from that group. It is a con-
stant challenge to remain aware of one’s feelings and
to handle them effectively.
Points to Consider
- Approach the client with a genuine, caring
attitude. - Ask the client at the beginning of the inter-
view how he or she prefers to be addressed
and ways the nurse can promote spiritual,
religious, and health practices. - Recognize any negative feelings or stereo-
types, and discuss them with a colleague to
dispel myths and misconceptions. - Remember that a wide variety of factors influ-
ence the client’s complex response to illness.
➤ KEY POINTS
- Each client is unique with different biologic,
psychological, and social factors that influ-
ence his or her response to illness.- Individual factors that influence a client’s
response to illness include age, growth, and
development; biologic and genetic factors;
hardiness, resilience, and resourcefulness;
and self-efficacy and spirituality. - Biologic makeup includes the person’s
heredity and physical health. - Younger clients may have difficulty express-
ing their thoughts and feelings so they often
have poorer outcomes when experiencing
stress or illness at an early age. - People who have difficulty negotiating the
tasks of psychosocial development have less
effective skills to cope with illness. - There are cultural/ethnic differences in how
people respond to certain psychotropic drugs;
these differences can affect dosage and side
effects. Nurses must be aware of these cul-
tural differences when treating clients.
Clients from non-Western countries gener-
ally require lower doses of psychotropic
drugs to produce desired effects.
- Individual factors that influence a client’s
I NTERNET R ESOURCES
Resource Internet Address
◗Native American Cultural Society http://www.nacs-athens.com
◗National Multicultural Institute http://www.nmci.org/Critical Thinking Questions
1.What is the cultural and ethnic background
of your family? How does that influence your
beliefs about mental illness?
2.How would you describe yourself in terms of
the individual characteristics that affect
one’s response to illness such as growth and
development, biologic factors, self-efficacy,
hardiness, resilience and resourcefulness,
and spirituality?
3.Which of the categories of factors that influence
the client’s response to illness—individual,
interpersonal, and cultural—do you think is
most influential? Why?