General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

Each person has his or her own personal history; that is, his or her collected experiences. Everything you have ever seen, heard, felt, learned, or experienced has lead to the development of this personal history. Factors that affect this history include your gender, race, age, ethnicity, culture, education, native language, and religion, to name a few. Collectively, these factors create the sum total of who you are as a person. Bias occurs when a person has a tendency towards a particular perspective or ideology (i.e. your personal history); after all, you see the world through your own eyes. To some extent, every person has a natural bias. However, if or when your personal bias interferes with your ability to be unprejudiced or objective – especially in your nursing practice – your biases can become problematic. In this discussion, you will have the opportunity to determine how strong your biases are.You should post your original message by 23:59 PM Wednesday. You should also reply to posts by two of your peers by 23:59 PM, Saturday of Module 3. General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

GUIDELINES

In the professional nursing practice, nurses must provide unbiased care, even in situations where the person/s being treated have different backgrounds (language, religion, culture, ethnicity, etc.) than you. The first step in overcoming and minimizing personal biases is to recognize them. In this discussion, you will assess your personal biases. Answer the questions honestly and to the best of your ability, noting that there are no right or wrong answers. General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

· Complete the General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

o The General Awareness and Attitudes Scale is adapted from the Cultural Awareness Scale by Catterson, Cookston, Martinez, & Rew (1998). Answer the question as honestly as possible. There are no right or wrong answers.

· Once you complete and score the General Awareness and Attitudes Scale, answer the following questions:

· What does the scale say about you?

· How strong are your biases? General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

· NOTE: Do NOT post your individual scores. This discussion is not about how you score, but about personal discovery. In other words, the focus of this discussion is about what you learn about yourself. You also do NOT need to share your score with your academic coach.

· How can you address these personal biases in your professional nursing practice?

Your original post should consist of complete sentences and should be at least two complete paragraphs but no more than three paragraphs.

The University of Texas at Arlington General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

School of Nursing

General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

Based on Cultural Awareness Scale by Shirin Catterson, Jeff Cookston, Stephanie Martinez, Lynn Rew

With permission from Dr Lynn Rew

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Student Name: ________________________________________________

Use the scale of 1 to 7 (1=Strongly Disagree, 4=No Opinion, 7-Strongly Agree) to indicate how much you agree or disagree with each statement. General Awareness and Attitudes Scale

My answers to this scale are all on very low numbers. I have grown up in New York City, surrounded by people of other ethnic backgrounds from my own, eating their food, playing with their children, attending holiday events and hearing many languages. I believe that culture can certainly influence someone’s beliefs, but that individuals may have different ideas. I try not to judge how I think a patient is going to respond until I actually speak to them myself, but I also try to approach in a respectful way. For example, I always tell a patient before I make any kind of physical contact with them, whether that is to do vital signs or insert an IV. We get many different types of patients in my hospital in Brooklyn. People really only treated differently if they are rude, if I’m being honest. I will acknowledge that there is a bit of bias for me when it comes to alcoholic patients. I don’t feel uncomfortable or pre-judge someone based on what I perceive their culture to be before even speaking to them. I am not without bias, it’s just that cultural bias is not the bias that I hold when it comes specifically to patient care. I work in the ER. I want to preface my thoughts with that. General Awareness and Attitudes Scale When I approach a patient, I try to imagine that they are here because they have a problem for which they are nervous and looking for an expert to help them with. A physician once told me to imagine it like I am taking my car into the mechanic. Personally, I don’t know much about cars. I’m hoping the mechanic will take a look at my car, find the problem and fix it so that I can go on about my life safely. This is how he said to think about people coming into the ER. Some of them have more knowledge about their body and conditions than others, but the fact of the matter is that they have a problem and they are coming in for help. Whenever I find myself getting annoyed with a chief complaint, I try to think about it that way. I also think that thinking about a patient in this way instead of looking at what culture you perceive them to be can help curtail bias. Look at everyone on the same level until you actually speak to them General Awareness and Attitudes Scale.