Inherent illnesses and attacks: an ethnographic study of interpretations of childhood Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) in Manhiça, southern Mozambique

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Lianne Straus¹  Robert Pool²  Christopher Pell²  Anna Roca³  Quique Bassat⁴  Khátia Munguambe⁵  Sonia Machevo⁵ 

[1] Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Hospital Clinic/Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques, University of Barcelona, Rosselló 132, 08036, Barcelona, Spain;Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Hospital Clinic/Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques, University of Barcelona, Rosselló 132, 08036, Barcelona, Spain;Centre for Global Health and Inequality, University of Amsterdam, OZ Achterburgwal 185, 1012, Amsterdam, DK, The Netherlands;Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Hospital Clinic/Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques, University of Barcelona, Rosselló 132, 08036, Barcelona, Spain;Centro de Investigação em Saúde da Manhiça (CISM), CP 1929, ManhiçaRua 12, Maputo, Mozambique;Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Hospital Clinic/Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques, University of Barcelona, Rosselló 132, 08036, Barcelona, Spain;Centro de Investigação em Saúde da Manhiça (CISM), CP 1929, ManhiçaRua 12, Maputo, Mozambique;CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Centro de Investigação em Saúde da Manhiça (CISM), CP 1929, ManhiçaRua 12, Maputo, Mozambique;Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique;

关键词: Malaria;    Health Worker;    Childhood Illness;    Demographic Surveillance System;    Care Seek;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-556

 received in 2010-07-19, accepted in 2011-07-13,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPneumonia is a leading cause of childhood hospitalisation and child mortality in Africa. This study explores local interpretations of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs), focusing on caretakers of children under five in the context of hospital care seeking.MethodsThe study took place in Manhiça, southern Mozambique and used Focused Ethnographic Study tools (FES) including field exercises and interviews.ResultsUnderstandings of terms used to describe ARIs differed between caretakers and hospital staff. Children's sicknesses that hospital staff diagnosed as ARIs were interpreted by caretakers as intermittent "attacks" of xifuva, a permanent, inherent and incurable chest illness. Caretakers thought that it was possible to manage and treat the attacks, which were caused by immediate natural factors such as food or the weather, but not the underlying illness, which was seen as having more indirect and social causes. Explanations of illness could not be neatly separated into pluralistic categories, but were characterised by syncretism, with "lay" and "biomedical" terms and concepts intermingling in practical care-seeking interactions between caretakers and health staff.ConclusionsHealth promotion should take into account the syncretism involved in explanations of ARIs in the context of practical care seeking for children. In doing so, it should draw upon lay interpretations and terminologies in order to stress the importance of seeking hospital care for all xifuva-type illnesses as well as seeking care for any subsequent attacks of an already diagnosed xifuva. However, this should be undertaken with awareness that the meanings of the terms used in practical care-seeking interactions may change over time. Health communication about ARIs should therefore be ongoing and evidence-based, even if ARIs appear to be well understood.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Straus et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.