The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was discovery of the meanings of care/non-care as experienced by ten European-American women during childbirth. This research was conceptualized within Leininger's (1991) Theory of Culture Care. The research areas included: generic and professional nurse care/non-care, the phenomena of generic care by nurses; and the congruence of these constructs with Leininger's theory. The informant's descriptions of their lived experiences were analyzed using Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenologic method. Ten childbirthing women and nine nurses were interviewed to discover the generic, professional and integrated patterns of care.
Findings included: 1) care universalities and diversities; 2) care preferences of European-American childbirthing women, and 3) professional nurse care as an integration of generic patterns into professional nurse care. These findings confirmed Leininger's theoretical position. The results of this study can guide transcultural nurses to know the differences and similarities between generic and professional care and integrate these two types of care into culturally appropriate care.
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