Cultural Meanings of Death and Dying

Course #67363 -

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Overview

Service delivery, assessing, intervening and communicating must reflect cultural respect and meet families' and patients' needs. Understanding the cultural lenses by which patients and family members hold about death and dying is a critical component to successful outcomes in clinical encounters in the health, mental health, and social service arenas and the design of culturally sensitive service delivery models. This course will address how race, ethnicity, and culture impact issues of dying, including attitudes toward death, death rituals, grieving and bereavement, advance directives, and palliative care to ensure that culturally responsive care is provided at the end of life. In addition, best practices for interventions and service delivery will be framed within both a culturally relevant and ethical context.

Education Category: Ethics - Human Rights
Release Date: 09/01/2021
Expiration Date: 08/31/2024

Table of Contents

Audience

This introductory course is designed for psychologists who work with diverse racial and ethnic minority groups and their families during the end of life.

Accreditations & Approvals

Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.

Designations of Credit

NetCE designates this continuing education activity for 5 credit(s).

Course Objective

With the ever-increasing multicultural diversity in the landscape of the United States, culturally competent and sensitive practice is essential for practitioners. The purpose of this course is to increase psychologists' knowledge and awareness of the impact of culture on issues of death and dying in order to improve the provision of care and patients' quality of life.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

  1. Discuss the changing demographic trends that contribute to the United States' multicultural landscape.
  2. Define the importance of cultural competence when working with patients and families around end-of-life issues.
  3. Compare and contrast Western and non-Western sociocultural values surrounding end-of-life topics.
  4. Describe cultural belief systems, values and norms for various racial and ethnic minority groups around death and dying issues including discussing death, attitudes towards death and dying, death rituals, grieving and bereavement, advance directives, palliative care, and other end-of-life issues.
  5. Discuss culturally sensitive communication strategies when discussing death and dying and end-of-life issues with racial and ethnic minority patients and families, including the role of interpreters.
  6. Identify best practice guidelines that reflect ethical cultural competence and sensitivity when working with racial and ethnic minority patients and families around issues related to the end of life.

Faculty

Alice Yick Flanagan, PhD, MSW, received her Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University, School of Social Work. She has clinical experience in mental health in correctional settings, psychiatric hospitals, and community health centers. In 1997, she received her PhD from UCLA, School of Public Policy and Social Research. Dr. Yick Flanagan completed a year-long post-doctoral fellowship at Hunter College, School of Social Work in 1999. In that year she taught the course Research Methods and Violence Against Women to Masters degree students, as well as conducting qualitative research studies on death and dying in Chinese American families.

Previously acting as a faculty member at Capella University and Northcentral University, Dr. Yick Flanagan is currently a contributing faculty member at Walden University, School of Social Work, and a dissertation chair at Grand Canyon University, College of Doctoral Studies, working with Industrial Organizational Psychology doctoral students. She also serves as a consultant/subject matter expert for the New York City Board of Education and publishing companies for online curriculum development, developing practice MCAT questions in the area of psychology and sociology. Her research focus is on the area of culture and mental health in ethnic minority communities.

Faculty Disclosure

Contributing faculty, Alice Yick Flanagan, PhD, MSW, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Division Planner

James Trent, PhD

Division Planner Disclosure

The division planner has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Director of Development and Academic Affairs

Sarah Campbell

Director Disclosure Statement

The Director of Development and Academic Affairs has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

About the Sponsor

The purpose of NetCE is to provide challenging curricula to assist healthcare professionals to raise their levels of expertise while fulfilling their continuing education requirements, thereby improving the quality of healthcare.

Our contributing faculty members have taken care to ensure that the information and recommendations are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents. Participants are cautioned about the potential risk of using limited knowledge when integrating new techniques into practice.

Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of NetCE not to accept commercial support. Furthermore, commercial interests are prohibited from distributing or providing access to this activity to learners.

Technical Requirements

Supported browsers for Windows include Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 and up, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Supported browsers for Macintosh include Safari, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Other operating systems and browsers that include complete implementations of ECMAScript edition 3 and CSS 2.0 may work, but are not supported. Supported browsers must utilize the TLS encryption protocol v1.1 or v1.2 in order to connect to pages that require a secured HTTPS connection. TLS v1.0 is not supported.

Implicit Bias in Health Care

The role of implicit biases on healthcare outcomes has become a concern, as there is some evidence that implicit biases contribute to health disparities, professionals' attitudes toward and interactions with patients, quality of care, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. This may produce differences in help-seeking, diagnoses, and ultimately treatments and interventions. Implicit biases may also unwittingly produce professional behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that reduce patients' trust and comfort with their provider, leading to earlier termination of visits and/or reduced adherence and follow-up. Disadvantaged groups are marginalized in the healthcare system and vulnerable on multiple levels; health professionals' implicit biases can further exacerbate these existing disadvantages.

Interventions or strategies designed to reduce implicit bias may be categorized as change-based or control-based. Change-based interventions focus on reducing or changing cognitive associations underlying implicit biases. These interventions might include challenging stereotypes. Conversely, control-based interventions involve reducing the effects of the implicit bias on the individual's behaviors. These strategies include increasing awareness of biased thoughts and responses. The two types of interventions are not mutually exclusive and may be used synergistically.