Application of Leiningers theory to the Muslim Client

Application of Leiningers theory to the Muslim Client According to Madeleine Leininger, care is the essence and the central, unifying, and dominant domain to characterize nursing (Leininger, 1984). To Leininger, â€Å"care and culture were inextricably linked together and could not be separated in nursing care actions and decisions† (Leininger, 1988, p. 153). Her theory of cultural care diversity and universality proves particularly useful in giving care in multicultural societies such as Canada where clients from non Anglo-Saxon origins have different interpretations of care and whose strict cultural beliefs, religion makes it impossible for minimal or no acculturation of nursing care of the dominant culture. The conservative Muslim client is unique in the sense that no matter where he or she comes from, Islam dictates how the client is supposed to live their life. Embedded in Islam is what care means. Nevertheless, it is important for nurses to be cognizant of the fact that Muslims have different origins and thus different cul tures. This paper explores what some of these care practices are in Islam and how Leininger’s modes of nursing care can be used in providing culturally congruent care. Leininger conceptualizes that there are two kinds of care that exist in every culture and are important to nursing care. These are generic and professional care. Generic care is the naturalistic local, folk and familiar home care practices whereas professional care in contrast is cognitively learned, practiced and transmitted knowledge learned through formal and informal professional nursing schools (Leininger, 1991). For a nurse to provide culturally competent care the two types of care have to be in unison. In which case, the ultimate goal is to link and synthesize generic and professional care to benefit the client. Leininger developed the sunrise model to help nurses visualize components of the theory influencing human care. The model conceptually depicts the worldview, cultural and social structure dimensi ons which influence generic and professional care which in turn influences nursing care actions and decisions. The nursing care actions and decisions include cultural preservation, accommodation and repatterning. Wehbe-Alamah, Lawrence, Rozmus and Luna all agree that a nurse’s knowledge of the basic tenets of Islam is important in providing culturally congruent care to the client. They also caution that since Muslim’s originate from different places and thus different cultural backgrounds it is imperative that Muslim’s are not treated as a homogenous group. It becomes important that in addition to knowing the tenets of Islam, the nurse inquires about the folk practices of the patient. Also all articles point to Leininger’s nursing modes of repatterning, accommodation and preservation as effective methods in achieving culturally congruent care. Wehbe-Alamah relies on the research of others as well as descriptive sources in providing what care means in Isla m while Lawrence and Rozmus rely on the Koran, the Hadith and modern interpretations of those writings as their source. Luna on the other hand conducts a study in which she analyzes the meanings and experiences of care of immigrant Lebanese Muslims living in a large Midwest urban community in the US. She explores the meaning of care in the clinic, community and clinic context. Narayanasamy’s study on how nurses respond to cultural needs also cautions that nurses must be careful in stereotyping people of the same religion since their cultural needs might be different.