Abstract
Formål: Hensikten med studiet er å kartlegge hva eldre Srilankiske innvandrere bosatt i Norge opplever som god helse. Hva mener de med god helse? Og hva gjør de for å ta vare på helsa si. Målet med studiet er å skaffe ny sykepleiekunnskap som kan sette sykepleieren i stand til å yte kultur tilpasset omsorg i samsvar med den eldre Srilankiske innvandrerens kulturelle behov.
Teoretiske forankring: Leiningers (1995, 2001) teorien om kultur betinget omsorg er brukt som hovedreferanseramme. Målet med teorien er å gi kulturrelevant bakgrunnskunnskap om helse og omsorg som kan sette sykepleieren i stand til å yte omsorg i samsvar med klientens kulturelle behov, verdier, forestillinger og daglig levesett. Kultur, helse og sykdom som forklart av Helman (2000) har også blitt sett på fordi det virket relevant for å gi en bedre forståelse av begrepet kultur i forhold til helse.
Metode: Dette er en kvalitativ studie. Convenience purposive snowball sampling (Polit og Beck, 2004) var brukt til å rekruttere syv informanter. Data ble samlet inn ved av en semi-strukturert intervjumal og senere analysert med en template analyse (Polit og Beck, 2004) stil.
Resultater: Mens det er få likheter med den norske kulturen om hva de mener og hva de gjør for å ta vare på helsa si, er det merkbart flere ulikheter mellom kulturene.
Konklusjon: Sykepleiere og helsepersonell som ikke kjenner til disse kulturelle behovene, verdiene, forestillingene og levesettet, vil mest sannsynlig ikke kunne yte kulturbetinget omsorg til disse eldre klientene.
The purpose of this qualitative study has been to investigate the meaning and practices of staying healthy as experienced by elderly Sri Lankan immigrants living in Norway.
The aim and goal being to obtain new knowledge that could help nurses and the Norwegian health sector provide culturally congruent care to elderly Sri Lankan immigrants
The theoretical reference frame: The study is guided by Leininger's (1995, 2001) Culture Care Theory. Leininger (2001) predicts that specific culture, health and care knowledge gained from using the culture care theory would give a wealth of information that would help achieve the goal of the theory. That is to make nursing care decisions and actions that are culturally congruent with the beliefs, practices, and values of the life ways of the clients. The theory and study has a trans-cultural focus. With a trans-cultural focus according to Leininger (1995, 2001), nurses think about culture care differences (diversity) and similarities (universality) across cultures in order to assist people to attain and maintain meaningful and therapeutic health care practices that are culturally based. Culture, health and illness as viewed by Helman (2000) too has been looked into as it seemed relevant in further understanding the concept of culture in association to health.
Design and Method: This is a qualitative study conducted in 2005/2006.Convenience purposive snowball sampling as described by Polit & Beck (2004) was used to recruit seven informants. Data collection is based on a qualitative semi structured interview guide. To make sense of the data collected a template analysis style (Polit and Beck 2004) was applied.
Findings and Conclusion: While a very few similarities exist, there are more significant differences exhibited by Sri Lankan elderly immigrants compared to the Norwegian elderly in their meanings and practices of staying healthy. Nurses and health care professionals who do not recognise these significant similarities or differences might not possibly be able to offer culture congruent care that maintains or improves the Health and well being of these elderly clients.