Relationships and Expectations of Older Hispanic Adults - Essay Example

Relationships and Expectations of Older Hispanic Adults Introduction Most often the relationship and expectations of older Hispanic adults are strongly affected by the concept of distrust or mistrust that will usually be extended to the relationship between older Hispanic adults and their attending health care providers. All too often, older Hispanics see their doctors as not really caring about them. Due to this feeling of their being too distant or impersonal, the older Hispanics might refuse to return to them for treatment.

This would most likely affects compliance in a negative way, because when the older Hispanics do not trust their doctors, they will be less likely to comply with the medications and treatments that have been recommended for their wellbeing. (Jang, Chiriboga, Herrera, Martinez Tyson & Schonfeld, 2011).RelationshipsIn some cases, older Hispanic adults feel like they are discriminated against. Many older Hispanics also have feelings of not being wanted resulting in a situation where the health care professionals start to become uninterested in caring properly for them, either intentionally or unintentionally.

To the older Hispanics, this would be seen as a violation of the basic cultural value of respect. The older Hispanic adults may then respond by continuing their treatments or ceasing to come back to a particular health care provider altogether (Sarkisian, Prohaska, Wong, Hirsch & Mangione, 2005). Even though in some surveys, older Hispanics tended to say that they felt that there hadn’t been any direct discrimination against them, it is clear that the concept of pride (orgullo) remains a very strong concept within their culture, and this is not lost among the older Hispanic adults, who may even decline offers of government health-care assistance, feeling that a welfare stigma is attached to such government assistance.

Health ExpectationsThe health expectations of older Hispanic adults tend to diminish with aging, but this is not always realistic. There are also cultural issues that result from the aging process, which affect the healthcare expectations of older Hispanics. Some older Hispanics might even unknowingly assume the stereotypical expectations of old age, and may not even take medications or treatment for serious health conditions. This is because they tend to dismiss the symptoms, which are mostly treatable and attributing them to being an inevitable part of the aging process (Napoles-Springer, 2005).

The results of recent studies suggest that mortality rate among older Hispanics are significantly lower than that of non-Hispanic whites, both for men and for women (Novello, Wise & Kleinman, 1991; Davey & Patsios, 1999). Cultural factors affecting healthcare deliveryCultural factors, expectations and relationships are critical for the provision of information about healthcare services to older Hispanic adults. Older Hispanics adults might also beliefs deeply rooted in seeking God’s help for their minor health problems, thereby leading to a situation where they only go to healthcare providers when there is a serious medical problem (Napoles-Springer, 2005; Palloni & Morenoff, 2001).

Some older Hispanics may also not have a good understanding of the technical terms used by their healthcare providers. ConclusionThe issue of personal touch is very important in the relationship between older Hispanics adults and their healthcare providers. It is imperative that older Hispanics endeavor to share their feelings with their doctors, in order to ensure that these older Hispanics get a feeling of actually being listened to and cared for. This will enable an atmosphere of trust between the older Hispanics and the healthcare professionals.

Older Hispanics will usually express a higher level of cautiousness about how much trust they vest on other people and about helpfulness. This concept of distrust could become extended onto their relationship with their healthcare providers.Previous studies suggest that there has been a perceived Hispanic adult mortality advantage, and this may be a factor in the search for an explanation of the mental resilience in older Hispanic adults. ReferencesJang, Y., Chiriboga, D., Herrera, J., Martinez Tyson, D.

, and Schonfeld, L., (2011). Attitudes Toward Mental Health Services in Hispanic Older Adults: The Role of Misconceptions and Personal Beliefs. Community Mental Health Journal, 47(2), 164-70. Napoles-Springer, A. M., (2005) Patients’ Perceptions of Cultural Factors Affecting the Quality of Their Medical Encounters. Health Expectations 8.1: 4-17.Novello, A.C., P.H. Wise, and D.V. Kleinman. (1991). Hispanic Health: Time for Data, Time forAction. Journal of the American Medical Association 265(2):253–55.

Palloni, A. and J. Morenoff. (2001). Interpreting the Paradoxical in the ‘Hispanic Paradox’: Demographic and Epidemiological Approaches. NY: New York Academy of Sciences.Sarkisian, C. A., Prohaska, T. R., Wong, M. D., Hirsch, S. and Mangione, C. M., (2005) Using Focus Groups of Older African Americans and Latinos with Diabetes to Modify a Selfcare Empowerment Intervention. Ethnicity and Disease. 283-91.