THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NURSING
LECTURE-DISCUSSION
THEORIST: MADELEINE LEININGER’S THEORY OF TRANSCULTURAL NURSING
OUTLINE
1. Credentials and Background of Madeleine
Leininger
2. Purpose of the Transcultural Nursing Theory
3. Definition of terms
4. Major Assumptions
5. Metaparadigm
CREDENTIALS AND BACKGROUND OF THE
THEORIST
WHO IS MADELEINE LEININGER
● Born on July 13, 1925 in Sutton,
Nebraska.
● It was due to her aunt who suffered from
congenital heart disease that led her to
pursue a career in nursing
● Developer of the concept of transcultural
nursing that has a great impact on how to
deal with patients of different cultures and
cultural backgrounds.
● Her theory is now a nursing discipline that
is an integral part of how nurses practice
in the healthcare field today.
● It was due to her aunt who suffered from
congenital heart disease that led her to
pursue a career in nursing.
● Certified Transcultural Nurse
TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS OF HEALTH AND DISEASE
PURPOSE OF THE TRANSCULTURAL NURSING
THEORY
● To discover and explain diverse and
universally culturally based care factors
influencing health, well-being, illness, or
death of individuals or groups.
● Could also be used in research studies, in
order to provide culturally congruent, safe,
and meaningful care to clients of diverse
or similar cultures.
MAJOR CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
TRANSCULTURAL NURSING
● a learned subfield or branch of nursing
which focuses upon the comparative study
and analysis of cultures with respect to
nursing and health-illness caring practices,
beliefs, and values with the goal to provide
meaningful and efficacious nursing care
services to people according to their
cultural values and health-illness context.
Transpersonal caring relationships are a
spiritual union.
ETHNONURSING
● This is the study of nursing care beliefs,
values, and practices as cognitively
perceived and known by a designated
culture through their direct experience,
beliefs, and value system (Leininger,
1979).
PROFESSIONAL NURSING CARE
● Formal and cognitively learned
professional care knowledge and practice
skills
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE DIMENSION
● Dynamic patterns and features of
interrelated structural and organizational
factors of a particular culture
● Religious, kinship (social), political (and
legal), economic, educational,
technological and cultural values,
ethnohistorical factors, and how these
factors may be interrelated and function to
influence human behavior in different
environmental contexts.
● Recognize the need to be more flexible in
the design programs, policies, and
services to meet the needs and concerns
of the culturally diverse population, groups
that are likely to be encountered.
CARE
● Refers to assisting, supporting, enabling
behaviors that ease or improve a person’s
condition.
CULTURAL CARE
● The values and beliefs that assist, support,
or enable another person or group to
maintain well-being, improve personal
condition, or face death or disability.
WORLD VIEW
● Refers to the outlook of a person based on
a view of the world or universe.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NURSING
LECTURE-DISCUSSION
THEORIST: MADELEINE LEININGER’S THEORY OF TRANSCULTURAL NURSING
FOLK HEALTH OR WELL BEING SYSTEM
● Refers to care or care practices that have
special meaning in the culture.
TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS OF ILLNESS CAUSALITY
● Be aware that folk illnesses are generally
learned syndromes that individuals from
particular cultural groups claim to have
● Ex: Pasma in the PH
CONCEPT OF CULTURE
● This is learned by each generation through
both formal and informal life experiences
CULTURAL AWARENESS
● It is an in-depth examination of one’s own
background, recognizing biases and
prejudices, and assumptions about other
people.
3 MODELS FOR CONGRUENT DECISIONS AND
ACTIONS
1. Cultural preservation or maintenance.
a. Retain and or preserve relevant
care values so that clients can
maintain their well-being, recover
from illness, or face handicaps
and/or death.
2. Cultural care accommodation or
negotiation.
a. Adapt/negotiate with others for a
beneficial or satisfying health
outcome.
3. Cultural care repatterning or
restructuring.
a. Change or greatly modify client’s
life ways for a new, different and
beneficial health care pattern.
b. Ex: if cultural practice is life
threatening to the patient
CONCEPTS
● Illness and wellness are shaped by
various factors including perception and
coping skills, as well as the social level of
the patient.
● Cultural competence is an important
component of nursing.
● Culture influences all spheres of human
life. It defines health, illness, and the
search for relief from disease or distress.
● Religious and Cultural knowledge is an
important ingredient in health care.
● The health concepts held by many cultural
groups may result in people choosing not
to seek modern medical treatment
procedures.
● Health care providers need to be flexible in
the design of programs, policies, and
services to meet the needs and concerns
of the culturally diverse population, groups
that are likely to be encountered.
● Most cases of lay illness have multiple
casualties and may require several
different approaches to diagnosis,
treatment, and cure including folk and
Western medical interventions.
● The use of traditional or alternate models
of health care delivery is widely varied and
may come into conflict with Western
models of health care practice.
● Culture guides behavior into acceptable
ways for the people in a specific group as
such culture originates and develops
within the social structure through
interpersonal interactions.
● For a nurse to successfully provide care
for a client of a different cultural or ethnic
to background, effective intercultural
communication must take place.
SUNRISE MODEL
● The Sunrise Model enables nurses to
develop critical and complex thoughts
towards nursing practice.
● The goal of the nurse is to render efficient
and effective nursing care.
● The model reflects influences of one’s
worldview on cultural and structure
dimensions.
● These cultural and social structure
dimensions in turn influence the
environment and language.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NURSING
LECTURE-DISCUSSION

THEORIST: MADELEINE LEININGER’S THEORY OF TRANSCULTURAL NURSING

● The folk health system includes the

traditional beliefs and practices on health
care while the professional health systems
are those practices.
● The next focus is on the generic or folk
system, professional care systems, and
nursing care.
● The combination of the folk health system
and the professional health system meets
the biological, psychosocial, and cultural
health needs of the patient/client.
ENVIRONMENT
● This is not specifically defined by
Leininger.
● The concepts of worldview, social
structure, and environmental context are
discussed.
● It is closely related to the concept of
culture.
NURSING
● A learned humanistic and scientific
profession and discipline which is focused
on human care phenomena.

METAPARADIGM

PERSON
● Referred to as human being
● Believed to be caring and to be capable
of being concerned about the needs,
well-being, and survival of others.
● include families, groups, communities,
total cultures, and institutions.

HEALTH
● It is a state of well-being that is
culturally defined, valued, and
practiced, and which reflects the ability of
individuals (or groups) to perform their
daily role activities in culturally expressed,
beneficial, and patterned lifeways.