Multicultural Clients

A professor of nursing, expert in multicultural health care and social services, describes the basic attitudes and beliefs of 15 important ethnic and religious groups in America and shows how these traits can affect behavior during illness or during social work interventions. Sensitive to problems of stereotyping, each chapter on an immigrant group provides some information about its homeland and population in the United States and then discusses the culture's modes of communication, its socioeconomic status, chief complaints, traditional family system, religious beliefs, views toward the elderly, child-rearing practices, culturally based health beliefs and practices, dietary patterns, characteristics relating to morbidity and mortality, beliefs about death and dying, physical assessment, and sources for further reading. The introduction points to a few key sources for continuing information about the care of multicultural patients and clients.

SYBIL M. LASSITER, Ph.D., R.N. , Associate Professor in Adult and Family/Community Nursing, East Tennessee State University, (formerly of Adelphi University, New York) has taught and advised at different institutions in the North and South. Her presentations have emphasized cultural diversity and its impact on the provision of health and social services to America's major ethnic and religious groups./e She has also written on the subject in various professional journals.