Confronting diversity: experiences of nurses in a sanatorium.
Tuberculosis has been identified as a major health problem in South Africa. Although the trend is towards treatment from clinics, in certain cases patients are admitted to a sanatorium, which means that they may come into contact with nursing staff whose frame of reference regarding tuberculosis frequently differs from their own. In this contact situation a number of problems were seen to arise, both as a result of circumstances within the sanatorium and because many patients retain health-beliefs of a more traditional kind. The purpose of this study is to investigate how some nurses who are confronted with socio-cultural diversity in a sanatorium experience and deal with such problems. A number of strategies that may be applied in approaching socio-cultural diversity are suggested from an anthropological perspective Data were collected during interviews with members of the nursing staff of a sanatorium.
Herselman
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Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
D000293:Adolescent; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015400:Clinical Nursing Research; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006782:Hospitals, Special; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D009740:Nursing Staff; D013019:South Africa; D013240:Stereotyping; D014390:Tuberculosis, Meningeal / Q000208:ethnology / Q000451:nursing; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000451:nursing*