4.7: The History of Transcultural Nursing

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Vasfiye Bayram De?er
Gümüşhane University via IntechOpen

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The foundations of transcultural nursing were laid in the mid-1950s. In nursing, Peplau first mentioned in 1950 that the cultures were an important variable affecting mental health. The growing interest in Leininger’s transcultural nursing model has begun with population changes and migration. Leininger tried to promote transcultural nursing movements. Much more attention was paid to the care of individuals from different cultures in the 1960s. Since 1960s, nurses have been carrying out studies aimed at providing particularly cultural care to people from all communities/cultures. In 1962, King stated that psychopathological behaviors differ from culture to culture. In 1969, the International Council of Nursing (ICN) began using cultural content in nursing. The Transcultural Nursing Society (TCNS) was established in 1974 to train nurses in this area.

This organization aims to provide the nurses and other health care professionals with the basic knowledge necessary to develop cultural skills in culturally sensitive practice, education, research and management [2].

Since 1989, “Journal of Transcultural Nursing” has been published, aiming to train nurses about transcultural care and improve their practice. Evidence-based studies have been conducted in this area. Today, there are about 25 books and over 800 articles covering research, theory and applications related to transcultural nursing [2].

This is a promising field of study with which Turkish nurses have recently started to be familiar. Now that globalization is inevitable, studies on transcultural care practices will broaden the horizons of Turkish nurses and the others all around the world.

In addition to Leininger, a pioneer model of transcultural nursing, many nurses worked in the field of cultural care including Boyle, Campinha-Bacote, Yahle Langenkamp, Giger and Davidhizar, Juntunen, Leuning, Swiggum et al., Purnell, Ryan, Carlton and Ali.

Among these, there are researchers arguing that the models and theories of two modelists (Giger and Davidhizar and Purnell) who do myriads of studies on cultural care are extremely simple, comprehensible and suitable for use in many different fields and cultures [5].