A 63-year-old Chinese-American man enters the hospital with complaints of chest pain, shortness of breath, and palpitations. Which statement most accurately reflects the nurse's best course of action?
a. The nurse should focus on performing a full cardiac assessment.
b. The nurse should focus on psychosomatic complaints because the patient has just learned that his wife has cancer.
c. This patient is not in any danger at present; therefore, the nurse should send him home with instructions to contact his physician.
d. It is unclear what is happening with this patient; consequently, the nurse should perform an assessment in both the physical and the psychosocial realms.
ANS: D
Wide cultural variations exist in the manner in which certain symptoms and disease conditions are perceived, diagnosed, labeled, and treated. Chinese-Americans sometimes convert mental experiences or states into bodily symptoms (e.g., complaining of cardiac symptoms because the center of emotion in the Chinese culture is the heart).
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