(Madeleine'sLeininger) Grand theorist report. Leininger’s Transcultural

Leininger’s Transcultural Care Theory
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Leininger’s Transcultural Care Theory
This paper focuses on the transcultural care theory which was developed by Madeline Leininger. It is based on the premise that culture plays an important role in the caring, treating and healing practices in the nursing field (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). The rationale for the selection of this theory is based on the fact that the nurse-patient relationship is vital in promoting positive patient outcomes and facilitating the healing process. As such, an understanding of the patient’s culture will result in a better nurse-patient relationship, and also will improve care services provided to the patient. Nurses and other health practitioners are increasingly interacting with patients from diverse cultures, which makes this theory an important area of focus. In addition, healthcare services have become globalized due to the technological advancements in the world, hence the need to understand different cultures.
The theorist, Madeleine Leininger, born in 1925, was a clinical mental health specialist who worked at a child guidance center and attended to children from different cultural background with mental health issues (Ray, 2013). Her experience at the center led her to the realization that there was a missing link between culture and care, which had not been well researched on. Since her educational background was in nursing and she had no knowledge of the culture, she enrolled in a Ph.D. in anthropology in the 60s to gain knowledge of different cultures (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). The study of cultural anthropology helped her envision and eventually develop the theory, which is very crucial in transcultural nursing. The aftermath of World War II greatly influenced Leininger’s desire to understand the relationship between culture and nursing care (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). This is because there were many immigrants who were moving from their native countries and into the United States or other countries. The immigrants had diverse cultures, and this broadened the new field of transcultural nursing, which needed to be researched on. As noted by Ray (2013), Leininger observed non-caring practices during her time at the child guidance center and noticed that there were different responses to treatment from children of diverse cultures. These observations also influenced her desire to develop the theory of culture and care.
The transcultural care theory can be classified as a middle range theory. According to McEwen and Wills (2014), middle-range theories are those that describe the relationship between phenomena or predict the influence of one phenomenon on another. In this case, Leininger’s theory falls under this classification because it tries to explain the relationship between culture care and patients’ well-being/ healing process. It is also conceptualized on the premise that understanding cultures facilitates the effective provision of care.
The theory is based on several assumptions. One of the main assumptions is that care is essential for healing, survival, and well-being of the patients (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). As such, it is important to have a humanistic and scientific approach to care. Another assumption is that nursing is a transcultural and scientific care discipline, whose main purpose is to serve human beings worldwide (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). This makes care a unifying factor in the field of nursing. Further, the theory assumes that culturally based nursing care is beneficial to the community. This means that if the beliefs, values, and traditions of a given community are well known and observed, then the care given is culturally based and is beneficial not only to the patient but also to the community. Every culture is said to have a lay and professional care practices that can be adopted to facilitate culturally based care. Another assumption is that structural forms of care and culture care expressions are different from and similar to various cultures (McFarland &Wehbe-Alamah, 2015). The difference is due to diversity and the similarity is as a result of universality. Finally, care is essential for curing/healing is another assumption underlying the theory. According to McFarland and Wehbe-Alamah (2015), this last assumption has been held as relevant across the world since, without care, there can never be a cure.
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