Madeleine Leininger's Transcultural Nursing Theory Research Paper

Madeleine Leininger's Transcultural Nursing Theory - Research Paper Example During her early nursing career, Leininger identified the need and importance of â€Å"caring† concept in nursing. She got her motivation from frequent appreciative statements from her patients. This acted as a leeway to her focus on ‘care’ as being an important or central nursing component. She experienced what she termed as a cultural shock during the 1950s while working as a child guide in children’s home. She realized that certain children behavioral patterns appeared to have cultural basis. She also recognized and realized that the missing link to nursing’s comprehension of the several variations necessary in patient care improve and support healing, compliance, as well as, wellness. The insights acted as the beginnings of a phenomenon and construct related to nursing care known as transcultural nursing. Leininger is the founder of the popular transcultural nursing movement in education practice and research. She defined transcultural nursing as a â€Å"substantive area of study and practice focused on comparative cultural care values, and practices of individuals or groups of similar or different cultures with the goal of providing culture-specific and universal nursing care practices in promoting health or well-being or to help people face unfavorable human conditions, illness, or death in culturally meaningful ways† (Leininger, 1989). ... It emphasizes on the universality and diversity with an aim of providing culturally related and wholistic care (Leininger & McFarland, 2006). The theory is, however, not a grand one since it has certain dimensions to assess for a given picture. It is a comprehensive and wholistic approach, which has given a leeway to a broader and wider nursing than expected with a reductionist and middle-range approach. The theory has a role of providing the required care measures while taking into consideration an individual or patient’s cultural beliefs, values and practices. Leininger came up with and coined the fundamental goal or aim of transcultural practice in nursing. She referred to it as culturally congruent care. It is only possible on the occurrence of the following within the client-nurse relationship: the nurse, together with the client, defines creatively a different or new lifestyle for the well-being or health of the client. This requires the use and application of both profe ssional and generic knowledge and ways in order to fit these diverse and new ideas into nursing practice and goals. Another important and unavoidable aspect of this theory is that knowledge and skills are normally re-patterned for the client’s best interest. This implies that all care modalities and means need co-participation of the client and the nurse. The two have to perform identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation of each mode of caring for culturally congruent or related nursing care. The modes normally stimulate nurses to come up with and design appropriate nursing decisions and actions with the use of the acquired new knowledge, as well as, the culturally based ways to give satisfying and meaningful wholistic care to various