Nursing Practice & Health Promotions - The Leininger’s Cultural

Running head: NURSING PRACTICE & HEALTH PROMOTIONS
NURSING PRACTICE & HEALTH PROMOTIONS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1NURSING PRACTICE & HEALTH PROMOTIONS
Leininger’s cultural care diversity and universality theory state that the nurses cannot
disconnect social structure, world perspective and cultural belief from the care process while
working with varied cultures (McEwen & Wills, 2017). This is because these factors are
closely associated and interrelated to each other. The discussion aims to apply the theory in
practice and research of nursing using specific examples from personal life.
The Leininger’s cultural care diversity and universality theory depict culturally
consistent nursing practice that uses supportive, cognitive, facilitative-based care, and the
process of decision-making is individualistic based on the cultural value, lifestyle and belief
of the individual, group or institution. Wehbe-Alamah (2018) stated that it has benefits in
term of offering meaningful and positive health outcomes based on the cultural backgrounds
of people. It can be seen that in a healthcare setting, many patients are admitted belongs to a
different culture and have wide-range of cultural belief. For example, as a nurse, it was
challenging for me to manage a person having Jehovah’s Witness, who was critically injured
and require a blood transfusion. However, I tried my best to address the issue by convincing
them to opt for blood transfer to save his life. According to McFarland & Wehbe-Alamah
(2019), the theory is also known as transcultural nursing practice which is defined as a
substantive area of knowledge and practice and is concentrated on the comparative manner
by taken into account the cultural care, beliefs, values and practice belonging to similar or
different cultures intending to offer culture-specific care. This allows the promotion of health
and well-being as well as supporting people to avoid unfavourable conditions such as illness
or death (Lopes Campelo et al., 2018). From experience, it can be stated that evaluating
cultural needs and beliefs is an integral part of the nursing profession. As a nurse of a sub-
acute rehabilitation facility, on a daily basis interacting with a large number of people
belonging to a different culture was a daily routine. Thus, assessing the needs of patients and
catering those at per the expectations was the main aim. Therefore, a brief cultural assessment

2NURSING PRACTICE & HEALTH PROMOTIONS
of each individual was important and inquiring about any religious beliefs prior to treatment
is vital. This help in compassionately offering care process. A patient was sick and
hospitalised who needed IV antibiotic. Her family belong to Trinidad and thus, have a strong
belief in voodoo. They constant stated that voodoo was responsible for her condition. It
affected her mind after being discharged, and one day she called me for help. With the use of
reflecting listening and motivational interviewing process, I encouraged her to continue
medicines. In this case, accommodation or negotiation was used as per the theory. Even I
tried to convince her family and final, negotiated with her mother by convincing her to
support the continuation of medication until she is fine. After several weeks she visited me
thanking for the support I gave her because of which, she was able to be cured on a complete
basis.
From the discussion, it can be concluded by stating that the nursing practice needs to
take into account multiple theories in cultural diverse practice and research to offer high-
quality care and improve the patient outcome to a high level . The healthcare staffs need to
take into account the cultural belief and values to offer effective care to patient.

3NURSING PRACTICE & HEALTH PROMOTIONS
References
Lopes Campelo, C., de Sousa, A., de Maria, S., Carvalho Silva, L. D., Dias, R. S., Ribeiro
Azevedo, P., ... & de Souza Paiva, S. (2018). PATIENT SAFETY CULTURE AND
THE CULTURAL NURSING CARE. Journal of Nursing UFPE/Revista de
Enfermagem UFPE, 12(9).
McEwen, M., & Wills, E. M. (2017). Theoretical basis for nursing. Lippincott Williams &
Wilkins.
McFarland, M. R., & Wehbe-Alamah, H. B. (2019). Leininger’s Theory of Culture Care
Diversity and Universality: An Overview With a Historical Retrospective and a View
Toward the Future. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 30(6), 540-557.
Wehbe-Alamah, H. B. (2018). Leininger’s Culture Care Diversity and Universality
Theory. Annual Review of Nursing Research, Volume 37: Transcultural and Social
Research, 1.