The Impact of Cultural Diversity on End-of-Life Care

Abstract

Despite the universality of death for humanity, end-of-life care needs and expectations are highly unique and influenced by the individual’s cultural conditioning, values, and beliefs. In the pursuit of quality end-of-life care provision within the increasingly complex and diverse contemporary medical context, it is vital for cultural idiosyncrasies to be taken into consideration in order to attend to the individual patient’s needs and end-of-life goals. Palliative chaplains, as the spiritual care specialists within the multidisciplinary healthcare team, play a crucial role in the support and facilitation of the holistic vision of end-of-life care delivery. However, the capacity of the chaplains to become culturally competent practitioners are often insufficiently addressed in their professional educational pathways, creating additional challenges for them in their practice. Using Hong Kong as a case study, this article examines the impact of cultural diversity on the effectiveness of the chaplains’ delivery of end-of-life spiritual care. Specifically, special attention will be focused on two identified challenges resulting from the lack of integration of local cultural understandings within the religion-cultural practice framework of chaplaincy formation: the cultural taboo of death, and the cultural idiosyncrasies in end-of-life communication. This article hopes to raise awareness of cultural incongruencies within the current chaplaincy professional formation and development, and to initiate further attention and efforts to support chaplains in becoming culturally competent practitioners in the pluralistic healthcare landscape.