The theory of culture care diversity and universality proves the interdependence of care and cultural phenomena to provide culturally congruent nursing care.
- Person – capable of being concerned about the needs, well-being, and survival of others
- Environment – the totality of the situation that gives meaning to social interactions in specific physical, socio-political, and cultural settings.
Madeline Leininger introduced the Culture Care Theory in 1991. It states that it is essential to know and understand different cultures in nursing to provide the best nursing care services according to the patients’ cultural values and health-illness context. The theory is based on several theoretical tenets:
- Cultural care practices and meanings are diverse but often have shared attributes;
- Cultural care is primarily defined by the worldview, environmental context, and other social factors to predict health and healing;
- Emic (folk) and etic (professional) health factors influence health in a different environmental context.
Thus, nurses must perform the culturally-based actions of culture care preservation, accommodation, and restructuring.
The theory functions on several core constructs, which are a person, environment, nursing, and health. A person or a human being, in theory, is believed to be capable of caring or being concerned about others’ needs, well-being, and survival. According to the idea of Culture Care Diversity, nursing care should go beyond traditional nurse-patient interactions and provide care for individuals, communities, institutions, and total cultures. The theory’s key concept is not the environment itself but rather the context. Environmental context presents the totality of the situation or particular experience that gives meaning to human expressions and social interactions in specific physical, socio-political, and cultural settings.