PRENATAL CARE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN SELECTED USA URBAN AND RURAL CULTURAL CONTEXTS CONCEPTUALIZED WITHIN LEININGER'S CULTURAL CARE THEORY.
Contributors: Wayne State University.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.
Description: The purpose of this ethnonursing research was to systematically discover, describe, and analyze the beliefs, practices, and values of African American women related to prenatal care. The domain of inquiry was prenatal care of African American women within their familiar cultural contexts. The study was conceptualized within Leininger's Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality which enabled the researcher to study professional and generic care as influenced by the world view, social structural factors, cultural values and beliefs, ethnohistory, and environmental context.

The research was conducted for comparative purposes in two selected areas of the United States, one an urban industrial center of the Midwest and the other a rural agricultural region of the Southeast. The goal of the study was to discover knowledge that could be used by health professionals to provide culturally congruent prenatal care that would increase the health and well being of the people. The rationale for the study was based on studies that showed the lack of prenatal care in the African American cultural group leads to low birth weights and high infant mortality rates.

The ethnonursing qualitative research method was used which included such activities as observation and participation in the naturalistic environments of the people, along with interviews of key and general informants related to the domain of inquiry.

Four major themes that focused on the domain of inquiry were identified: (1) cultural care meant protection, presence, and sharing; (2) social structural factors that greatly influenced the health and well-being were spirituality, kinship, and economics; (3) professional prenatal care was seen by the women as necessary and essential but there was distrust of non-caring professionals, and barriers to such care; and (4) folk health beliefs, practices, and indigenous health care providers were widely used by pregnant women in the African American community.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-02, Section: B, page: 0744.

Thesis (PH.D.)--WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, 1994.

School code: 0254.