Madeleine M. Leininger's Transcultural Nursing Theory

Madeleine M. Leininger, founder of the worldwide Transcultural Nursing Society, is the founder and leader of the field of transcultural nursing, focusing on comparative human care theory and research. “The development of Madeleine Leininger’s theory resulted from an integration of her background as an anthropologist with her experience and observations as a nurse” (Schub, 2014). As a pioneering nurse educator, leader, theorist, and administrator, Dr. Leininger has been a risk taker and innovator. She has never been afraid to bring forth new directions and practical issues in education and service. Her determined leadership has made transcultural approaches and patient care crucial to nursing and valued as recognized areas of education and practice.

Leininger’s most meaningful and exceptional influence was the development of her Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory, which she introduced in the early 1960s to provide culturally congruent and competent care. “She believed that transcultural nursing care could provide meaningful, therapeutic health and healing outcomes”(Parker & Smith, 2010). The Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality was developed to establish a applicable knowledge base to guide nurses to understand and apply transcultural nursing into their own practice. Leininger also identified three new creative ways to attain and maintain culturally congruent care. “The three modalities postulated were: culture care preservation or maintenance, culture care accommodation or negotiation, and culture care restructuring or repatterning” (Parker & Smith, 2010). Cultural preservation or maintenance signifies to nursing care interventions that help clients of particular cultures to retain and preserve cultural care standards when delivering healthcare. Cultural care adjustment or cooperation refers to original and advanced nursing actions that assist people of various cultures familiarize or convey with others in order to achieve a goal of optimal health outcomes appropriate to the patient’s culture whether it be an individual, a family, or a community. Cultural care repatterning or restructuring signifies to the therapeutic actions occupied by the culturally knowledgeable nurse that allow the patient to change individual health behavior to accomplish valuable results whereas valuing the cultural morals of the patient. These expectations are the theoretical foundation in which Leininger has benefited to enhance significance, complexity, and clearness to the general emphasis of culturally skilled care. According to Leininger’s Sunrise Model, a visual depiction of the theory, can be a used as a tool for implementing individualized culture assessments of patients. “The model