HEALTH BELIEFS RELATED TO DIARRHEA IN CHILDREN OF HAITIAN MOTHERS LIVING IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
Contributors: University of Kansas.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 152
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the health beliefs related to diarrhea in children of Haitian mothers living in the Dominican Republic. Ethnographic interviews conducted by the author and a participatory research method utilizing indigenous Community Health Workers (CHWs) were used for data gathering purposes.

Eight CHWs conducted sixty-five interviews with Haitian mothers living in one of six bateys north of La Romana. A structured interview schedule was used to determine the mothers' beliefs regarding the causes, symptoms, and treatments for diarrhea in children. The author conducted eighteen individual interviews and a group discussion with approximately twenty mothers to gain additional cultural data and to validate and corroborate the CHW's findings.

The data were analyzed by developing a data matrix in which responses were examined for commonalities and placed in categories. Many of the categories were derived from identical responses and required no subjective determinations. Other categories were derived by the author through an identification of common themes in the data.

The mothers identified diarrhea as the most dangerous threat to their children's health. Impure water, "bad" food, and microbes were believed to be the most likely causes of diarrhea along with "mal de ojo" or the evil eye. The mothers correctly described the symptoms of severe diarrhea identifying changes in the physical appearance and response of the ill children.

Treatment beliefs included categories of foods to give and foods to avoid, and a wide variety of herbs and tree leaves to be used to make teas and homemade remedies. None of the mothers could accurately describe oral rehydration therapy, although some had limited knowledge of the ingredients to be used. A belief which could potentially have a severely negative impact on children's health was the belief that it was beneficial to stop breast feeding a child who had diarrhea.

The health problems in the bateys of the Dominican Republic are much too large to solve quickly or easily, but the current research demonstrates the necessity of learning local health beliefs as a basis for developing culturally relevant nursing interventions.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-11, Section: B, page: 4754.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1988.

School code: 0099.