Efforts to change people in a culturally insensitive way usually result in resistance, misunderstanding, and dissatisfaction. For example, instructing hypertensive patients to eliminate salt from their diets is an attempt to change behavior without taking into consideration the patients' culturally rooted cooking and eating habits. This may create a conflict or disparity between the health educator and the patient and increases the patient's dissatisfaction (Katz, 479). The health care provider needs to have learned negotiation skills and utilize those skills in each instance of instituting a health care plan. In the instance of the hypertensive patient, the provider may need to work with the patient and a dietitian to devise the best way possible to eliminate excess salt from this patient's diet without compromising the patient's cultural beliefs. An individual's compliance with an alteration in health-related behaviors is also dependent on whether that person has faith or belief in the efficacy of a treatment option or health-related information (Katz, 480). In this instance, the health care provider also needs to take on the role of a salesperson. The ability to sell the plan to the patient will make a difference in the compliance of the patient. The health care provider needs to be sure that the plan being instituted is truly the correct plan for the problem that this patient has.

Health care providers with a unicultural perspective consider their own beliefs and practices to be the only ones that are valid and effective. They are culture specific in their approach to patient care and usually function ethnocentrically, i.e., they impose their beliefs and practices on others. Health care providers who have a multicultural orientation to patient care are usually aware of the differing beliefs and practices of the culturally diverse populations they serve. They strive to perceive the situation from the other person's perspective, compare it with their own and mediate between the two to achieve interventions that are mutually satisfactory (DeSantis, 304). Given the climate of the health care industry today, providers need to strive to have a multicultural orientation to patient care. That multicultural approach should include any potential culture, not just racially diverse cultures. Providers who maintain an open approach and attitude are able to treat each patient with respect and develop a plan best suited for that patient.