Wealth of New Research-based Knowledge
Wealth of New Research-based Knowledge
In establishing this new discipline, different lines of think- ing and practice were essential. It necessitated futuristic vision, risk taking, commitment, patience, and leadership to challenge many traditional nursing ideas and practices. Unquestionably new knowledge and practices were essential for nurses to function in a rapidly changing multicultural
world. Substantive theory-based research knowledge was greatly needed with a global and comparative focus to care for people of diverse cultures. Culturally based care knowledge was the major missing area in nursing in the mid-20th century and still is in some places in the world. I coined the construct of culturally congruent care, which is the central goal of the theory.
In my first two books,Nursing and Anthropology(1970) and Transcultural Nursing: Concepts, Theories, Research, and Practice(1978), the nature, rationale, need, and theoreti- cal base were given to establish transcultural nursing. Nurses needed in-depth knowledge of cultures with an anthropologi- cal view and in-depth, culturally based care phenomena. I held that care was the essence of nursing and had meaning within cultural contexts. Care was not fully known and valued in nursing, and so it was a challenge to get nurses interested in the Culture Care theory in the 1950s and 1960s as the medical mind-body treatments and symptoms held nurses’ interests and practices (Leininger, 1991). Moreover, many nurses believed care was “too soft, feminine, and nonscientific” and “culture was irrelevant and unnecessary.” With my persis- tence and enthusiasm for the theory, some nurses began to support the idea.
In 1991, the theory bookCulture Care Diversity and Uni- versalitytook hold and was a great breakthrough in caring for the culturally different. This book has been the primary and definitive resource to discover largely unknown and limitedly valued culture care knowledge and practical uses in client care. My second edition ofTranscultural Nursing(1995) con- tributed a wealth of new research-based knowledge on 30 Western and non-Western cultures, plus refinements in research methods, teaching, clinical practices, and adminis- tration. The third edition ofTranscultural Nursingby Leininger and McFarland (2002) provides theory-based research and practice by transcultural nurse scholars in many
Journal of Transcultural Nursing,Vol. 13 No. 3, July 2002 189-192 © 2002 Sage Publications
cultures and is the most definitive, authoritative, and compre- hensive transcultural nursing book available.
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