Bhardwaj S M, Paul B K
Soc Sci Med. 1986;23(10):1003-10. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(86)90257-1.
This paper examines some aspects of the health search behavior of parents in a rural area of Bangladesh who were unsuccessful in their attempt to save their infant's life. This issue is analyzed within the pluralist medical milieu and very high infant mortality rates prevalent in Bangladesh. There are several different medical cultures in Bangladesh each with their distinctive ideologies about disease causation and the nature of medical intervention. Practitioners of the modern cosmopolitan or western system of medicine are only one of the major types among several types of healers. The choice of a healer by the parents of infants is a complex process depending on a great variety of conditions such as the health status of the infant, relative proximity of the healer, cost of health care, transportation facilities, gender of the infant, attitude of the parents toward different systems of medicine, the past experience of the parents and the like. We posit that the choice of healer of a particular type may be related less to the traditional or modern orientation of the parents than to the severity of the infant's condition and the expectancy of cure. Thus, infants exhibiting acute symptoms of a disease may be more likely to be placed under the care of a 'western' type physician than taken for treatment to an indigenous medical practitioner. Such attitude on the part of the parents may, however, result in the loss of precious time at the most critical moments, and thus may reduce their chances of success to save their infant's life.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
本文探讨了孟加拉国农村地区一些父母的健康搜索行为，这些父母在挽救婴儿生命的尝试中未获成功。这一问题是在多元医学环境以及孟加拉国普遍存在的高婴儿死亡率背景下进行分析的。孟加拉国有几种不同的医学文化，每种文化对疾病成因和医疗干预的性质都有独特的观念。现代国际或西方医学体系的从业者只是多种治疗者类型中的主要类型之一。婴儿父母选择治疗者是一个复杂的过程，取决于多种条件，如婴儿的健康状况、治疗者的相对距离、医疗保健成本、交通设施、婴儿性别、父母对不同医学体系的态度、父母过去的经历等等。我们认为，选择特定类型的治疗者，与其说与父母的传统或现代取向有关，不如说与婴儿病情的严重程度和治愈的期望有关。因此，表现出疾病急性症状的婴儿可能比被带去看本土医生更有可能由“西方”类型的医生照料。然而，父母的这种态度可能会在最关键的时刻导致宝贵时间的流失，从而可能降低他们挽救婴儿生命的成功几率。（摘要截选至250字）
