Cultural Beliefs: Impact on Nursing Practice & Aboriginal Health

This essay explores the traditional Aboriginal worldview regarding health and illness, highlighting the minimal transition in their beliefs about disease causation and treatment. It discusses how Aboriginal perspectives link illness to responsibilities, religion, and land, often attributing it to social and spiritual dysfunctions or supernatural intervention like sorcery. The essay emphasizes the challenges this worldview poses for nursing practice, particularly when Western-trained nurses encounter differing cultural beliefs. It also addresses issues such as cultural differences among nurses and the need for strategies that incorporate Aboriginal beliefs without compromising healthcare principles. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and resources for students.

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The traditional Aboriginal culture on Health Beliefs
The Aboriginal worldview of disease and general health has changed over time, however,
there has been a minimal transition in their attitude and beliefs about the cause and treatment
of diseases. This can be ascertained by the existence of widespread resistance of the western
beliefs and medical practices. The Aboriginal worldview on the cause of illness has been
linked to several aspects of their life such as responsibilities, religion, and land. Their socio-
medical system of health attributes illness to dysfunction in social and spiritual practices.
Boddington and Räisänen (2009) observe that this approach is of the belief that the health and
wellbeing of an individual are always dependent on the effective discharge of duties to the
land and the society (Fantin & Greenop, 2009). This world view of disease causation
emphasises that different illnesses require different treatment approaches depending on the
cause. For instance, illnesses such as toothaches, headaches etc. are termed as minor and only
require rest as a treatment approach. The Aboriginal worldview of disease causation leads to
poor health and healthcare. This is because attributing disease causation to dysfunction in the
social and cultural norms prevents one from seeking medical attention from the western
system, which is based on completely different beliefs (McBain‐Rigg & Veitch, 2011).
Another element in the Aboriginal health life is sorcery and supernatural intervention. The
community holds a worldview that the demise of the very sick, very old or infants are
regarded to be normal events in life, whereas other deaths not affecting these categories are
believed to be caused by supernatural powers, more so when unexpectedly occur. Sorcery is
the primary aspect that explains the cause of serious disease, injury or deaths. The worldview
of sorcery among the Aboriginals has significant negative effects on health and healthcare.
The traditional punishment of violating any guidelines provided by sorcerers such as spearing
in the thigh undermines the basic principles of healthcare. Furthermore, the idea of attributing

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sorcery to be the cause of injury, disease or death creates confusion among the people and
thus making them become irresponsible for illnesses or drug abuse (Hamacher, 2013).
The Aboriginal worldview regarding health affects nursing practice in several ways. Nurses
are trained using a system that is based on the western health system which is based on the
premise that every decision must be based on evidence. This is contrary to the Aboriginal
health system which attributes diseases to some deities or dysfunctions in the society or
individual obligations. This becomes a challenge when such nurses are assigned to offer
healthcare services to Aboriginal people. This is because they find that the nursing practices
they have learned are contrary to the cultural safety of the Aboriginals, thus making their
work ineffective (Stuart & Nielsen, 2011). Additionally, cultural differences among
Aboriginal nurses and others have also led to segregation at the workplace and the former are
regarded as second class citizens. Thus, the Aboriginal worldview regarding health is a
matter that affects nursing practice and there is a need for developing strategies that will
incorporate their beliefs without compromising the principles of healthcare (Downing &
Kowal, 2011).

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References
Boddington, P., & Räisänen, U. (2009, February). Theoretical and practical issues in the
definition of health: Insights from Aboriginal Australia. In The Journal of Medicine
and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine(Vol. 34, No. 1,
pp. 49-67). Oxford University Press.
Downing, R., & Kowal, E. (2011). Putting Indigenous cultural training into nursing
practice. Contemporary nurse, 37(1), 10-20.
Hamacher, D. W. (2013). Aurorae in Australian Aboriginal traditions. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1309.3367.
McBain‐Rigg, K. E., & Veitch, C. (2011). Cultural barriers to health care for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders in Mount Isa. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 19(2), 70-74.
Stuart, L., & Nielsen, A. M. (2011). Two Aboriginal registered nurses show us why black
nurses caring for black patients is good medicine. Contemporary nurse, 37(1), 96-
101.