How do traditional Chinese health beliefs and Chinese culture affect health and illness?

How do traditional Chinese health beliefs and Chinese culture affect health and illness?

Traditional Chinese health beliefs represent a holistic perspective and emphasize the importance of environmental factors when increasing the disease risk. According to Quah (1985), these factors influence the balance of body harmony, Yin and Yang. These are two opposite but complementary forces that together with Qi (life energy) control the universe and explain the relationship between humans and their surroundings. An imbalance of these two forces or the Qi leads to illness.

In order to restore the balance, traditional naturopathic practices may be required. For example, excess "hot" energy can be compensated for by cooling herbal teas and vice versa. These beliefs are deeply rooted in the Chinese and, after the migration to Singapore, turned out to be unchanged.

lee, et. Al. (2004) found that patients with certain chronic diseases, namely arthritis, diseases of the musculoskeletal system and stroke, use traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This was strongly determined by the "chronic disease trias", the perceived satisfaction with care and cultural beliefs on health.

The application of the TCM is therefore not associated with the quality of the doctor-patient interaction. Astin (1998) also agreed that it was considered better with the values, spiritual and religious philosophy or the convictions of patients in terms of nature and importance of health and illness.

In traditional Chinese culture, the use of medication is considered aversive, so medication is usually only taken until the symptoms are relieved and then discontinued. If the symptoms are not obvious, medication will probably never be taken.

Apart from the cultural beliefs of the parents, minor side effects can contribute to poor therapy loyalty. The use of "excess", "shared" antibiotics and the over -the -counter purchase of antibiotics by parents are common situations in the community.

You think that your children suffer from the same diseases due to the similar symptoms, so you would give your children the "overlay" or "shared" antibiotics and only bring them to their doctors if no improvement occurs (Chang & Tang, 2006). This can lead to their condition deteriorating and later aggressive treatments are necessary that can have unnecessary side effects.

However, there are small groups of Chinese who also blame for supernatural powers or divine retaliation or the malice of a "witch" or a "magician" for bad health or misfortune (Helman, 1994). Such groups will usually seek remedies of their religions.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Health worked out the ethics code and the ethical guidelines for TCM practitioners to prevent unscrupulous practitioners from taking advantage of their patients and exploiting their faith, for example, to bother ignorant patients.

The degree of acculturation was demonstrated in the following case. An old man was admitted to our hospital with a week -long history of malaise, nausea and vomiting and sudden jaundice. With him, an obstructive mass was diagnosed in the liver.

A biopsy resulted in a hepatocellular carcinoma. The serological test indicated chronically active hepatitis B. When his son granted the news that his father had cancer, he asked not to tell his father.

When we spoke about topics at the end of life such as hospice care and "do-noteanimates" (DNR) arrangements, the son tried to direct the discussion on other topics, for example when his father could go home.

cultural problems that can play a role in this case are:

The Chinese tend to protect older people from bad news.

of karma believe - the older people believe that it brings misfortune to talk about illnesses or death/dying. They think that talking about something bad leads to it becomes true.

There is an increased incidence of liver cancer due to hepatitis B due to delayed treatment in older people, as it can take a long time to accept the initial diagnosis.

Reference:

astin yes. (1998). Why use patients alternative medicine. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 1998; 279: 1548-1553.

CHAN, GC & TANG, SF (2006) Parental knowledge, attitudes and antibiotic use In the case of acute infections of the upper airways in children who visit a clinic for basic care in Malaysia. Singapore Medical Journal, 47 (4): 266

Helman, CG (1990) Culture, Health and Disease. Wright, London.

quah, SR (1985) The health faith model and preventive health behavior in Singapore. Social Sciences and medicine, 21, 351-363.

LEE GBW, Charn TC, Chew ZH and NG TP. (2004). The use of complementary and alternative medicine in patients with chronic diseases in primary care is associated with the perceived quality of care and cultural beliefs. Family practice, 21 (6): 654-660.