Introduction
Cultural competency is currently taken for granted in nursing theory and practice. However, cultural competency was not always normative. Madeline Leininger was the first nursing theorist, practitioner, and scholar to distinguish transcultural nursing as a unique means of providing top quality of care. The underlying principle of transcultural nursing, also known as ethnonursing, is applying anthropological and sociological principles to nursing practice. Contemporary nursing practice is culturally competent at its core primarily because the principles of Leininger’s nursing theory have become fully incorporated into education and professional practice.
Leininger: Describing the Theorist
Born in Nebraska, USA, Leininger recognized the importance of caring as a fundamental principle of the profession of nursing (“Madeline Leininger’s Culture Care,” n.d.). Leininger received several collegiate degrees, the first of which was a nursing diploma in 1950 from St. Anthony’s School of Nursing in Denver, during which time she worked in a children’s home and realized the importance of shifting away from the colonial and xenophobic approach towards one based on cultural competency (Busher Betancourt, 2015).
Her initial nurse education was followed by a Bachelor’s of Science from St. Scholastica (Benedictine College) in Kansas in 1954, followed by a Master’s in psychiatric and mental health nursing from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1965, finally receiving the PhD in cultural and social anthropology from t he University of Washington in Seattle in 1965 (“Madeline Leininger’s Culture Care,” n.d.). Leininger was the first to put forth the concept of transcultural nursing: the concept of adapting nursing practices to be more culturally relevant.
Classification
Nursing theories are classified from levels of generality or abstraction,...
References
Busher Betancourt, D.A. (2015). Madeline Leininger and the transcultural theory of nursing. The Downtown Review 2(1): : http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/tdr/vol2/iss1/1
Leininger, M.M. (1988). Leininger's Theory of Nursing: Cultural Care Diversity and Universality. Nursing Science Quarterly 1(4): 152-160.
Leininger, M. (1994). Quality of life from a transcultural nursing perspective. Nursing Science Quarterly 7(1): 22-28.
Leininger, M. (1999). What is transcultural nursing and culturally competent care? Journal of Transcultural Nursing 10(1): 9.
“Madeline Leininger’s Culture Care,” (n.d.). http://nursing.jbpub.com/sitzman/ch15pdf.pdf
McEwen, M. & Wills, E. M. (2014). Theoretical Basis for Nusing. 4th Edition. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer.
Wayne, G. (2014). Madeline Leininger’s transcultural nursing theory. Nuselabs. https://nurseslabs.com/madeleine-leininger-transcultural-nursing-theory/
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