Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Health and Illness

Abstract

Introduction: Every society has its own traditional beliefs and practices related to health care. Some practices are effective whereas others may be harmful or ineffective. These beliefs and practices are linked to culture, environment and education. Health workers must have concern for the community's cultural values and beliefs so that they can utilize the harmless practices for effective use as well as eliminate harmful practices. Objectives of the study were to explore the adults perception on health and illness, Identify the health care seeking behavior and to find the relationship between perceptions on health and illness with the study variables. Method: Explorative cross sectional survey study was conducted among rural adults in the selected villages of Udupi district. The study subjects (75) were interviewed through a questionnaire and selected by purposive sampling Results: Data shows that majority (52.9%) of them were in the age group of 20-40 years and most (76.6%) of them were females. 52% were illiterate and 73% were lived in nuclear family. 64% of the samples take the decision to seek medical help by themselves. Majority of the samples (85%) perceived that yoga and exercises reduces the health risks. Most of the samples (70%) perceived smoking, alcohol, using unsafe water & food, multiple sex partner, stress, obesity, are the risk factors to cause the diseases. Conclusion: Present study samples perceived diseases like epilepsy, tuberculosis, leprosy is due to sin of god and past sins. Further studies may require giving awareness program on particular area to remove such false beliefs.

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