Madeleine Leininger

Madeleine Leininger’s main contribution to nursing, among many, is her Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory. In this theory, Leininger’s main tenet of belief is that, “culturally congruent care is essential for clients for their well being or to gain and remain healthy,” (Leininger, 1991: 181). One of the origins of this theory is the increasing multiculturalism around the globe. With so many diverse cultures, each of them having different conceptions and methods of care, it is important for nurses to expand the dimension of care they traditionally have utilized (an ethno-centric model by and large). Leininger had a unique perspective into the situation because she was a nurse and an anthropologist. Her observations of different cultures, and the different ways in which they “cared”, lead her to believe that there needed to be a blend of nursing care and cultural knowledge. This research will discuss Leininger’s Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory. A brief conclusion will address the fact that nursing in and of itself is also a culture that needs understood for quality care to exist.

One of the most difficult challenges facing Leininger was how to combine care and culture to provide a model of cultural care that would be effective. In 1985 Leininger had formulated her thoughts on the subject to the point of generating a general theory about cultural care a

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new dimensions have been introduced into the health care system, so too nursing care has been required to expand its dimensions to adjust with the external environment. There have been ten major trends in the health care system that have evolved which have had a direct impact on nursing care: “changing patterns of ambulatory care; new arrangements for financing health care; increasing concern for providing health care for defined populations; evaluation and monitoring of the quality and cost of health care; increasing trend toward patient and community education; community participation in health care decisions; new relationships between academic health centers and the health care system; increased concern for health manpower planning; increased technological developments; increasing concern for ethical and moral issues,” (Leininger, 1975: 18-24). If we look at Leininger’s Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory in relation to these to some of these trends, we can see its development and evolution occurred as these trends took shape within the health care system. For example, increasing concern for providing health care for defined populations means that the types of values and meanings these defined populations ass
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Approximate Word count = 1519
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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