This ethnographic study examines care as a cultural phenomenon among the Bena in the village of Ilembula in Tanzania. The focus of both, nursing science and anthropology, is to understand a human being, who creates his/her own culture and experiences it. Thus care can be studied as a cultural phenomenon, a culture of its own. The study is meaningful for Finnish nursing science because it creates theory for practise. The focus is to demonstrate what should be considered when nursing is practiced and nursing research conducted in another culture and transculturally. How to consider the premises of another culture? How another culture or other cultures are viewed in nursing care? What is needed in confirming the quality of nursing care when taking care of a patient in a diverse culture or a patient representing a different culture? Immigrants and refugees are coming to Finland in growing numbers. This study widens Finnish nurses’ perspective in understanding and helping patients coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. Ethnographic study does not aim to give instructions of a better practice but to stimulate discussion and increase the actors’ understanding of the situation by showing the points which have formerly been left with little or no attention.
This study opens a new chapter in the Finnish nursing research, since there are no previous studies examining care from the cultural perspective in a developing country here, in spite of the fact that Finnish nurses have been employed in the third world countries for decades. To me, as a representative of a different culture, it was important to examine the non-professional care practices existing in the community, since this study opened my eyes to realise how easy it is to simplify lay care in order to make it understandable. This fits the goal of the qualitative ethnography, which is to increase our knowledge of human life and to widen our understanding of human phenomena.
The findings support the following ways to promote culturally competent clinical nursing practice
the nurses working for the benefit of the Bena in the Ilembula village (or for any other cultural group anywhere else) should utilise the Bena cultural knowledge (or cultural knowledge relevant to the group concerned) and consider the context and lifeways of the Bena (or the group concerned) in health education. Even though some of the findings of this study, when examined critically, could be categorised as disappearing folklore, they are still in people’s minds and influence their care decisions
the Bena cultural knowledge should be utilised when nurses teach young girls about menarche, take care of pregnant mothers, take care of malnourished children or patients with convulsions, or face patients with reproductive health problems
Western-type nursing training does not give enough skills for nurses to encounter patients with worldviews different from the dominant western worldview. A nursing education programme in Tanzania and other non-western countries should therefore contain local cultural knowledge presented systematically throughout the training
On-the-job training for newly employed nurses coming from outside the community and for nurses working in PHC should be culturally oriented in order to reduce the gap between the professional health care providers and the recipients of care
This ethnographic study does not examine the exact content of care in various culturally sensitive conditions and issues. More nursing research is therefore needed not only in hospital settings but also in the community to create caring patterns that are scientifically sound and culturally acceptable. We should therefore
Study care in culturally sensitive conditions, such as epilepsy, AIDS, infertility, and pregnancy
Deepen the findings of this study by examining care beliefs by using interpretive ethnography
Establish common ground for professional and lay care in Ilembula by developing a new model for co-operation between the traditional healers and the hospital staff by means of participatory methods
Strengthen women’s influence on the formation of human capabilities and human development in a rural Tanzanian village from the feminist perspective
Analyse of the family as a care resource
Develop a cultural care model of the Bena in the Ilembula village.