Madeleine Leininger's Transcultural Nursing: Nursing, Diversity And Universality Theory

Philosophy of nursing is what an individual believes that nursing is. Every individual has a different belief on what nursing is. For Desai nursing is the ability to care for the sick, alleviate sufferings and protect one’s patients. It is the nurse’s job to be there for the patient, speak up for the patient and to assist and support them in any way possible. It is not just about looking after the patients, it also is about understanding them and the care they want to receive. Every individual has beliefs and values that they follow. The nurse has to acknowledge that and then proceed with providing quality care. Nursing also is also about establishing strong relationships with the patients, patients’ family and co-workers.
Providing care should

Transcultural nursing focuses on care, beliefs, value and patterned lifeway’s to provide efficient care to patients (Leininger, McFarland, 2002, p.5-6). In Leininger’s transcultural nursing, nurses would practice taking the patients culture into consideration. According to Leininger there are many benefits to gathering cultural information from the patient to use in treating the patient. It helps to understand culturally how patients deal with illness and death. Also, there is a lot of diversity in the work area so being knowledgeable of the different cultures could help in strengthening the nurse-patient relationship. Lastly, having cultural background on the patient could help nurses be open-minded when treating the patient non-traditionally, such as with spirituality based therapies like medication (Nursing Theory, 2013, p.1-2). Leininger believes that there are three modalities that guide a nurse to provide the best care possible. The three modalities include culture care preservation, culture care accommodation and cultural care repatterning. These three modalities help nurses to make decisions with patients. They also require nurses and patients to work together to provide efficient nursing care with respect to the cultural similarity of the care (Masters, 2014, p.68). The four metaparadigm that Leininger’s cultural diversity and

Desai depicts health as a vital part of life. Health is determined by the culture and values followed. A person may be heathy in the nurse’s point of view, but according to the person’s culture they do not feel health. A nurse needs to provide care till the patient feels healthy. Desai also believes that health is when the person feels as a whole. Leininger’s portrayal of health when the patient is in good condition, culturally defined, valued and practiced (Masters, 2014, p.68). Leininger just focuses on a patient being in good health as long as it is following their culture and values. That is a similarity that Desai and Leininger share with their portrayal of health. They both believe a person is not in good condition till they are health culturally defined. A difference between Desai and Leininger is that Desai believes being in good health is when a person feels as a soul and not dysfunctional. Leininger does not mention about health being when a person feels as a whole person. Also, Desai believes that in order to survive one needs to completely healthy. Health is a vital part of life, therefore staying in good health is