During the family conference we called for this woman, the physicians discovered that she and her family had a number of vital questions and concerns that the patient had failed to ask during her previous visits. Not wanting to impose, Latinos commonly have difficulty questioning a healthcare provider. Sometimes, they have not understood an instruction but avoid asking questions out of fear of embarrassment, ridicule, or rejection. And sometimes they will say what the healthcare provider wants to hear because they feel the provider does not understand their situation anyway. These possibilities need to be considered when communicating with the patient.
Health behavior can also involve a religious factor.
Sometimes Hispanic patients will believe that events results from luck, fate, or other powers beyond an individual's control. The challenge here is to assess the amount of control that the patients believe they have over their health and to design interventions that build on traditional supportive concepts. On another occasion, I was paged to the pediatric ward. She clearly had serious reservations about the procedure and did not want it performed, but she was having difficulty contradicting an instruction from the physician. As the physician handed her a pen to sign the consent form, she had tears in her eyes.