Madeleine Leininger founded transcultural-nursing care. She is one of the very first nurse anthropologists that recognized care and culture as two major significant phenomena in nursing (Leininger.2002). Care according to Leininger’s concepts has different meaning in different cultures but in general, care refers to assistive or supportive behaviors that improve an individual’s condition (Leininger.2002). According to Madeleine Leininger, care is essential for individuals’ survival, development and ability to deal with life events. Culture is a value held for a long time, it guides individuals’ decision making, imparts individual believes, norms, life practices, thinking and actions in a specific way. These cultural practices are learned, shared and hanged on (Leininger .2002).
Cultural care according to Madeleine Leininger (2002b) refers to those values, believes which enables, support another person to maintain or in some cases enables another person to improve a person’s conditions. According to Leininger (2002b); cultural care focus is to assist nurses in providing care that is responsive to individual’s cultural perspectives. To provide holistic care, Madeleine Leininger recommends a nurse should explore and understand the effects of cultural diversity in health care setting. She implied that having an understanding of the cultural diversity would be essential in the provision of an appropriate care to clients, groups, families and communities (Leininger.2002b).
Leininger’s theory is represented as the sunrise enabler to discover culture care, symbolic of hope to generate new knowledge for nursing. The model forms sunrays that influence individuals, groups and groups in health and illness. These sunrays are shown as technological, religious and philosophical, kinship and social, cultural values and lifeway’s, political and legal, economic, and educational. Leininger proposed a nurse to be a mediator, broker and
References: Ehrmin, J. T. (1998). Culture Care:Meaning and Expression of African-American Women Residing in an inner City Transitional Home for Substance Abuse. ProQuest Dissertion and Theses;1998;ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Sources pg.n/a. George, T. B. (1998). Meaning, Expression and Experiences of Care of Chronically Mentally Ill in a Day Treatment Center using Leininger’s Cultural Care Theory. ProQuest Dissertion and Theses;1998;ProQest Nursing & Allied Health Sources pg.n/a. Leininger, M. M. (2002b). Culture care assessments for congruent competency practice. In M. Leininger & M. McFarland (Eds.), Transcultural nursing: Concepts, theories, research, and practice (3rd ed.pp. 117–143). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.