Communication barriers in cross-cultural healthcare interactions

Healthcare: Law, Ethics, And Policy; Accounting and Cultural Diversity

Barriers to communicating with others from diverse backgrounds

Communication is essential between people of different cultures as it enables them to exchange views, ideas, and understand the behavioral traits that distinguish different people. However, due to the variations in culture, there are bound to be barriers that make communication difficult. Some of these include:

Language barriers: Sometimes, misunderstandings occur during interactions between people speaking different languages. The same words may be assigned different meanings and words that are mispronounced may also distort the information being passed across. For example in Japanese, verbs are often positioned at the end of sentences. This could obviously distort the message being put across to someone who is not necessarily conversant with Japanese.

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism: Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's cultural beliefs and values are better and superior to others. Cultural relativism, on the other hand, describes the situation where people of a certain culture judge others' sense of right and wrong. This may result in disrespect and downplaying of other people's views and opinions.

Nonverbal cues: Sometimes, nonverbal communication may be misinterpreted. For instance, in the U.S., eye contact may be interpreted as a sign of interest and respect, while in Asian countries, it may signify rudeness, disrespect or even rebelliousness. In Ghana, eye contact is also not as important as listening to the speaker.

Stereotypes: Sometimes, people assume that some character traits or mannerisms define all the members of a particular group (Samovar, Porter and Mac Daniel, 2009). These assumptions are often negative and they may lead to bias and hostility that could make communication difficult.

Ways to overcome communication barriers and improve intercultural communication skills

To eliminate these barriers, appreciation of other people's cultures and sensitivity to their views and opinions is essential. There are three ways people can improve their intercultural communication skills:

Disregarding cultural assumptions and stereotypes

Stereotypes and assumptions have to be abandoned as they are often false and misinforming. People should refrain from actions based on these assumptions and they should put an effort in learning and appreciating other people's cultures and values.

Respect for cultural diversity

Once people respect other people's opinions, whether they understand them or not, it will put an end to hostility, biasness and discrimination. During interactions, people should refrain from behaviors that are considered inappropriate in other cultures and communicate with respect and friendly formalities.

Principles of accounting: lease or buy decisions

Instead of buying an asset, sometimes, an individual can take up a lease for a specified period of time. A lease is a contact that enables the individual to use an asset for a given time period as they pay rent on a periodic basis (Warren, Reeve, and Duchac, 2013). In the example given, if the manager wants to replace the copier, the following factors have to be put into consideration: the financial implications, the time period it will be used for, and the qualitative factors.

When financial implications are put into consideration, the manager should simply evaluate the finances the