How Can the Community Health Nurse Recognize Stereotypes, Bias, and Implicit Bias?
Bias- the manifestation of negative evaluation, perception, and opinion regarding a certain social category and its members occurs either directly or indirectly. They mostly stem from the conscious or unconscious consumption of negative or otherwise derogatory information regarding the group in question over time and little interaction with such persons. They may lead to the formation of stereotypic precepts regarding the group (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). A common bias-situation in the US healthcare system is the disproportional treatment of people of color, as compared to Caucasians.
Since bias is a function of environmental factors that can manifest in almost anyone with a distinct cultural identity, the best method of recognizing such bias is personal assessment. This should involve noticing one’s personal assumptions regarding social groups. Politics, language barriers, regional inflections, and racial discussions occurring across interactive media platforms may cause nurses to develop and correlate a patient with stereotypic behaviors and beliefs. The best sign of these underserving opinions and stereotypical assumptions may be identified when there is a lack of compassion once a caregiver comes into contact with patients belonging to this category and showing certain triggers like clothing & grooming style, accents, or ways of speaking (Veesart & Barron, 2020). It is important to understand that compassion in community nursing situations should be constant in interactions with all patients. The evaluation and assessment process should be a continuous process,
How to Deal with Bias, Implicit Bias or Stereotyping in Community Nursing
The first step in dealing with bias is recognition. After recognition, a nurse struggling with bias should interact with the social group in question. It is prudent that nurses maintain an open mind, embracing multiculturalism through consuming literature, art, or any other form of history-describing source of information regarding the social group in question. It is prudent that nurses get to know their patients on a personal level while caregiving. Developing an interpersonal relationship serves to remove the veil of stereotyping and recognizing the individuality of the patient, not their race, gender or any other form of social categorization (Veesart & Barron, 2020).