Assessment and Health and Illness Beliefs Health and illness beliefs can play a big role in the assessment process. Health is the balance of a person, both within one’s being (physical, mental, or spiritual) and in the outside world (natural, communal, or metaphysical). It is a complex, interrelated phenomenon. On the contrary, illness is the loss of a person’s balance. Cultural beliefs may be helpful, harmful, or neutral but as a nurse, you must take a person’s beliefs into account when caring for a patient. Cultural variation exists where certain symptoms and diseases are perceived, diagnosed, labeled, and treated. When dealing with different cultures, a nurse should not assume that the perceived symptoms or complaints of patients are equivalent …show more content…
All cultures have their own preferred lay or popular healer, recognized symptoms of ill health, acceptable sick role behavior, and treatments. Patients may seek help from folk or religious healers along with their health care provider. Some cultures have their own healers, most of whom speak the person’s native tongue, make house calls, understand the person’s cultural health beliefs, and cost significantly less than practitioners in the biomedical or scientific health care system. In some religions, spiritual healers may be found among the ranks of the ordained and official religious hierarchy and may be known by a variety of names. In other religions a separate category of healer may be found. Spirituality is included in the perceptions of health and illness. Many cultures believe that the cure is incomplete unless healing of body, mind, and spirit are all carried out. Many people from different faith traditions practice prayer or visit healing shrines. In addition to folk practices, many other complementary healing practices exist, such as, acupuncture, Ayurveda, biofeedback, chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation, deep-breathing exercises and guided imagery, diet-based therapies, homeopathy, hypnosis, meditation, Tai-Chi and Yoga, and traditional folk …show more content…
Illness is punishment for wrongdoing and the imbalance of hot and cold. Beverages, foods, herbs, medicines, and diseases are classified as hot or cold according to their perceived effects on the body, not on their physical characteristics. Illnesses believed to be caused by cold entering the body include earache, chest cramps, paralysis, gastrointestinal discomfort, rheumatism, and tuberculosis. Among illnesses believed to be cause by overheating are abscessed teeth, sore throats, rashes, and kidney disorders. Illness is caused by evil eye, envy of other people, and jealousy. Health is maintained by the use of proper diet to maintain balance of hot and cold and faith. For health protection amulets such as a mano negro, soaps, and candles are used. Health restoration is by prayers, promises to saints, herbs, anis, and manzanilla. Traditional healers include folk healers such as the santrola, partera, or
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
The roots of the above beliefs and values are influenced by the fact my parents and grandma were raised in Vietnam. Growing up, my grandma lived in poverty as a single mother raising 12 children. She has always been independent with her health and often rely on traditional home remedies. The idea of knowing many cultures shares this mutual health belief; it will definitely affect my nursing practice in the future. The majority of Southeas...
The United States’ population is currently rising exponentially and with growth comes demographic shifts. Some of the demographics shifts include the population growth of Hispanics, increase in senior citizens especially minority elderly, increase in number of residents who do not speak English, increase in foreign-born residents, population trends of people from different sexual orientation, and trends of people with disabilities (Perez & Luquis, 2009). As a public health practitioner, the only way to effectively eliminate health disparities among Americans, one must explore and embrace the demographic shifts of the United States population because differences exist among ethnic groups (Perez, 2009). We must be cognizant of the adverse health conditions for each population and the types of socioeconomic factors that affect them. Culture helps shape an individual’s health related beliefs, values, and behaviors. It is more than ethnicity and race; culture involves economic, political, religious, psychological, and biological aspects (Kleinman & Benson, 2006). All of these conditions take on an emotional tone and moral meaning for participants (Kleinman & Benson, 2006). As a health professional, it is one’s duty to have adequate knowledge and awareness of various cultures to effectively promote health behavior change. Cultural and linguistic competencies through cultural humility are two important aspects of working in the field of public health. Cultural competency is having a sense of understanding and respect for different cultural groups, while linguistic competency is the complete awareness of the language barriers that impact the health of individuals. These concepts are used to then work effectively work with various pop...
A study was performed in Canada by sending a 2-page questionnaire to 125 registered physicians. It's purpose was to show their knowledge of Native American healing traditions, and their willingness to cooperate with healers when treating their patients. A total of 79 (63.2%) of the questionnaires were returned (Zubek, 1994, p. 1925). The questions included whether the physicians approved of their patients seeking healers in different clinical settings (i.e. for health maintenance, benign and chronic illnesses, outpatient and inpatient settings, visits to intensive care units, and palliative care), for the prescribing of traditional medicine, who should be responsible for delivering traditiona...
Health according to the Constitution adopted by the International Health Conference held in New York in 1946 which led to the foundation of the World Health Organization (WHO) was defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization 2006, pp. 1-18) and it was observed a fundamental right of every human being to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health irrespective of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition (WHO, 2006). However Yurkovich and Lattergrass (2008) urged the impossibility of the existence of a universal definition of health as cultural context within which an individual is raised inevitably affects the person’s perceptions of health and wellness and as Spector (2003) advocated without careful observation of community and culture healthcare providers and the recipients would be like two separate groups trying to communicate in different languages. In these contexts, social messages, language, customs, and rituals serve as a form of social communication, which constitute an integral part of culture and as a result, affect treatment outcomes (Green, 2010; Naidoo and Wills eds., 2008). Conrad (1999) and Lawton (2003) (cited in Swami et al. 2009) pointed lay people perceived health and illness as something integrated into daily life, fuelling a shift from utterly bio-medical frameworks towards more holistic understandings of health and ill-health, but illness and healing according to Green (2010) and Cartwright (2010) are elaborated and socially constructed concepts and individuals acquire characteristics like capacity to represent the external world, think and communicate, explain their place in the...
Through showing the different definitions of health, the authors explain how those different understandings affect patterns of behavior on health depend on different cultures. In addition, an analysis of the models of health demonstrates even western medical approaches to health have different cognitions, same as the Indigenous health beliefs. The most remarkable aspect is a balance, a corresponding core element in most cultures which is an important consideration in Indigenous health as well. From an Indigenous perspective, health is considered as being linked, and keeping the connection is a priority to preserve their health. Consequently, health is a very much culturally determined. Health practitioners should anticipate and respect the cultural differences when they encounter a patient from various cultures. In particular, this article is good to understand why the Indigenous health beliefs are not that different than western medicine views using appropriate examples and comparative composition, even though the implementation the authors indicated is a bit abstract, not
Issues of culture are often controversial. LaBorde (2010) has noted that culture is always a factor in conflict. Ironically, conflict can provide nurses with an excellent opportunity for developing compassion that will lead nurses unto a place of meeting in which there is a deep respect for differences and equally intentional openness to the possibility of connection. Healthcare practitioners are confronted in a daily basis with the practical manifestation of these issues. In particular, nurses are more confronted by cultural issues than the other healthcare providers because nurses spend majority of their time with patients. However, some nurses are reluctant to confront and discuss the cultural issues because of lack of knowledge in dealing with patients of diverse cultures (Tjale & Villiers, 2004).
Acupuncture, ayurveda, chiropractice, homeopathy, meditation, osteopathy, and yoga are just a few of the many types of medicine practiced all over the world. According to the western establishment, all these forms of medicine are called alternative medicines. However, some of the aforementioned techniques have been in continuous use for over six thousand years, predating western medicine by over four thousand years. Yet, still many M.D.'s reject alternative forms of medicine. One of the buzzwords in medicine in recent years has been "holistic medicine". Physicians are becoming more aware of the need to treat the whole patient rather than just certain symptoms. Due to this realization, a small percentage of doctors are turning to ancient forms of medicine as a guide to alternative treatments. As alternative forms of medicine emerge in the western world, Christian scientists need to determine the moral, religious, and scientific validity of such techniques in order to gain a more holistic approach to medicine.
Throughout time, mankind has persistently been seeking ways to maintain their health and to cure those that had not been so fortunate in that task. Just about everything has been experimented with as a cure for some type of illness whether physical, spiritual or mental. There has always been evidence of spiritual healing and it will continue to be an important part of any healing process, large or small. In particular, the roots of Native American Medicine men (often a woman in some cultures) may be traced back to ancient times referred to as Shaman. A special type of healer used by the Indians is referred to as a medicine man (comes from the French word medecin, meaning doctor).
I let my client tell me how he felt about illness based on his own values and beliefs. I also used therapeutic communication techniques such as general lead, listening, sitting at eye level with the client etc. to make this as comfortable as possible for him. I think I was appropriate and very successful at retrieving my client’s beliefs about illness and sickness without pressuring him too much. In the future when conducting an interview with another person about their culture, I would use the same techniques and approach as I found it to be very successful, and my client was very comfortable and established a trust worthy relationship with him regarding his illness based on his cultural beliefs and values. This interview contributed in preparing me for the future and also gave me insight on how to conduct a successful cultural assessment without making assumptions. I learned that every culture is unique and has somewhat of a similarity to other cultures, but one must never assume before doing a thorough assessment. This also prepared me in being more culturally competent while providing care to clients and their families from different cultures and
research on healthcare practices in a culturally diverse setting has established the importance of cultural awareness, competence, and diversity for healthcare workers.
According to Dyer & Dyer (2013) research, to improve the team performance it is important to consider the four “C”s. It is essential that team and its member understand the meaning of the four C’s in order to have a high performing team. The four “C”s are (1) The context of the team, (2) The composition of the team, (3) The competencies of the team, and (4) The change management skills for the team.
Certain religious groups reject westernized medicine, like the Amish. Yet, for the most part most religions allow their medicinal practices to work in tandem with westernized medicine. For example, First Nations people tend to have a very holistic view when it comes to their surroundings and medicine. Aboriginal traditional approaches to health and wellness include the use of sacred herbs like sage or tobacco and traditional healers/medicine (pg. 5, Singh, 2009). However, they will not reject help from professionally trained doctors and medical staff. Much like other religions, First Nations put a strong emphasis on family/community. Consensus or decision-making is fairly common for them. A practitioner or medical staff member must remember to respect ceremonial objects such as tobacco or traditional blankets, include immediate family members when making a treatment decision, and to accommodate spiritual practices. Normally, organ donation is accepted UNLESS the organ is being removed from someone who is not deceased. First Nations’ believe that their bo...
How does culture influence health? Give some examples of ethnic and cultural influences on the health of individuals or populations.
This viewpoint highlights the ways in which definitions and experiences of health and sickness are shaped by cultural norms, power structures, and society beliefs. A social constructionist viewpoint views illness as a social construct shaped by power relations, cultural norms, and economic circumstances. The idea of "medicalization," as proposed by Peter Conrad, describes how non-medical problems are classified and handled like medical ones. Medicalization illustrates how social norms and hierarchies impact the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.