The authors believe cultural competence is a continual and
dynamic process and that the standard’s outcome criteria are
the benchmarks along the continuum of cultural competency.
As such, an agreed-on set of transcultural nursing standards
assists in (a) demonstrating how health outcomes (quality of
life) increase withth e practice of transcultural nursing, (b)
focusing attention on transcultural nursing within the profession,
(c) increasing diverse communities’ confidence in the
nursing profession, and (d) advancing the practice of
transcultural nursing. The authors have noted differences in
academic preparation of professional nurses in Standards I
and VII to reflect the reality that undergraduate preparation
often does not provide sufficient time for in-depthconcen -
trated study in transcultural nursing theory and research
methods. Where there is a differentiation in process criteria or
knowledge base between the nurse generalist and the nurse
specialist, those roles are noted. Those unique differences in
Standards I and VII do not hinder the general application of
these standards for professional nurses. The authors have also
incorporated the nursing process into the standards due to
long-standing use of this model and because the authors find
the model useful in their nursing practices.