THE ARTICULATION OF NURSES AND INDIGENOUS HEALERS IN SWAZILAND: A NURSING PERSPECTIVE (HEALERS, AFRICA).
Contributors: University of Utah.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Previous research has documented the role of the indigenous healer in Swaziland. Also, a project articulating indigenous and cosmopolitan health care providers was initiated without success. The purpose of this study was to explore the articulation of nurses and indigenous healers in Swaziland from the perspective of nurses. Therapeutic syncretization, defined as developing a unique healing system from two ideologically distinct systems, and international nursing provided the conceptual framework for the study.

Ethnography implemented through interviews and participant observation was utilized to answer the following questions: (1) How do nurses perceive their role and the role of indigenous healers as health care providers? (2) How do nurses from various health care settings (government, private, mission, industrial, and nongovernmental organizations) perceive the articulation of indigenous and cosmopolitan health care systems? (3) Can a process of syncretism articulating nursing and indigenous healers be identified in Swaziland based upon nursing perceptions of articulation?.

Fieldwork took place over a period of 12 months. During that time, 65 nurses and 3 Ministry of Health officials were formally interviewed. Nurses had at least 1 year of experience in the setting (rural, periurban, and urban) in which they were interviewed.

Analytic induction of the interviews demonstrated that nurses are experiencing a process of syncretization as a commitment to nursing persists in spite of negative perceptions of nursing. Changes in nursing include movement of nursing education from hospital-based acute care settings to the University of Swaziland and rewriting of the Nurse Practice Act.

Religious affiliation and clinical setting may affect perceptions of articulation. Nurses in mission and private rural practice perceive articulation in a positive manner. Government nurses in rural settings indicate a need for a national health policy to structure articulation efforts, while nurses in urban settings were ambivalent or expressed negative perceptions of articulation. However, all modes of articulation expressed by the nurses served to further the goals of cosmopolitan health care. Utilizing rural health motivators as culture brokers was suggested to articulate indigenous and cosmopolitan health care systems.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-07, Section: B, page: 3329.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, 1990.

School code: 0240.