Nursing is a discipline and a practice profession that requires individuals involved in it to practice holistic health care that is guided by the principles of human freedom, responsibility, and choice. It is expected that nurses would use clinical judgment and critical thinking in order to facilitate evidence-based care to both individuals and communities for achieving the desired levels of client health and wellness within diverse nursing contexts and settings.
Nursing meta paradigms represent sets of theories and ideas that offer a perspective on how the discipline should be functioning. The four fundamental concepts, or meta paradigms, which are embedded in the nursing practice, include nursing, person, environment, and health.
The person represents a biochemical, physical, psychosocial, and intellectual being that would survive in the case when internal and external needs are met. Health refers to the ability to function independently and successfully adapt to the stressors of life as well as the achievement of full life potential. The environment is made up of external elements that directly and indirectly affect the response of the organism. Nursing is a discipline concerned with caring for patients to reach the desired health outcomes.
The nursing meta paradigm influences the implementation of culturally proficient nursing care because it is associated with a set of theories and ideas, offering a structure to the functioning of the discipline. Culturally skilled nursing care goes hand-in-hand with the changing nature of society. There may be differences in the way patients would approach their health care and recovery because of their varied cultural or religious perceptions of health care (Swihart & Martin, 2020).
By understanding these differences, nurses can modify their care to the unique needs of patients and adjust the processes in accordance with cultural proficiency. Each of the nursing meta paradigms focuses on ensuring that patients are offered all of the necessary resources for relieving the burden of poor health and well-being. The interplay between the concepts emphasizes the need for collaboration between nurses and patients on the basis of their cultural needs and approaches toward care. The focus on collaboration, the co-evolution of knowledge and health patterns, as well as unitary thinking emphasizes the availability of various forms of nursing care.
As suggested by Leininger, care and culture represent two significant phenomena in nursing. The study of care and culture as continuously interacting concepts led to the development of the culture care theory, which is the only theoretical framework that focused on culture (Busher Betancourt, 2016). By using the theory together with the nursing meta paradigms, it becomes possible to develop and support behaviors that would facilitate the improvement of a patient’s condition. Moreover, the culture care theory, reinforced by meta paradigms, would bear different meanings in a different culture that is determined by examining the overall view of the world by a particular group, its social structure, and language.
A comprehensive look at existing nursing meta paradigms could provide an overview of the key cultural values, which are identified as the ways of thinking or acting. These values are essential for guiding the decision-making process by the culture that is relevant to the specific circumstances. Overall, nursing meta paradigms support culturally proficient care because they encourage nursing professionals to look at the specific circumstances and the cultural needs of their patients in order to facilitate the improvement of health care services.
References
Busher Betancourt, D. (2016). Madeleine Leininger and the transcultural theory of nursing. The Downtown Review, 2(1), 1-7.
Swihart, D., & Martin, R. (2020). Cultural religious competence in clinical practice. NCBI. Web.