CULTURE CARE EXPRESSION, MEANINGS, AND EXPERIENCES OF PREGNANT MEXICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WITHIN LEININGER'S CULTURE CARE THEORY.
Contributors: Wayne State University.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 318
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.; Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology.; Subject No Longer Used.
Description: The purpose of this qualitative ethnonursing study was to describe, explicate, and systematically analyze the emic meanings and patterned experiences of generic (folk) and etic professional care during pregnancy of Mexican American women in their home and prenatal contexts in a southwestern community in the United States. The study was conceptualized within Leininger's theory of Culture Care Diversality and Universality to include worldview, environmental context, ethnohistory, language, and social structure.

Sixteen key informants and 34 general informants participated in the study. Mexican American women who entered prenatal care during the first two trimesters of pregnancy were selected from a public health clinic. Data collection occurred over an 11 month period using the naturalistic methods of observation, participation, and interviewing. Three to nine interviews during pregnancy and one interview during the first month postpartum were conducted with key informants.

Six themes were synthesized from 30 cultural care patterns identified from analysis of the raw data. These themes were: (1) Culture care was protection of the mother and fetus as transmitted intergenerationally over time by older Mexican American women, and was greatly influenced by religion and family beliefs and practices, (2) culture care was a family obligation for provision of filial succorance, sharing of self, and "being with" the childbearing mother, (3) culture care was respect for familial caring roles in relation to age and gender, (4) childbearing Mexican American women viewed culture care by professional nurses as concern for, professional knowledge, protection, being attentive to, and explaining, (5) culture care was use of the Spanish language in caring interactions in diverse environmental contexts, and (6) professional prenatal care was valued by Mexican American women but was influenced by legal, economic, and technological factors in the social structure.

The findings are discussed in relation to Leininger's three modes of nursing decisions and actions: Culture care preservation/maintenance, accommodation/negotiation, and repatterning/restructuring.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-04, Section: B, page: 2474.

Thesis (PH.D.)--WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, 1996.

School code: 0254.