J Nurs Acad Soc.  1990 Dec;20(3):430-458.

Study of Folk Caring in Korea for Cultural Nursing

• Ko SH
• Cho MO
• Choi YH
• Kang SP

Abstract

Care is a central concept of nursing. Nursing would not exist without caring. Care and quality of life are closely related. Human behavior is a manifestation of culture. We can say that caring and nursing care are expression of culture. The nurse must understand the relationship of culture with care for ensure quality nursing care. But knowledge of cultural factors in nursing is not well developed. Time and in-depth study are needed to find meaningful relationships between culture and care. Nurses recognized the importance of culturally appropriate nursing There are two care systems in culturally based nursing. The folk care system and the professional nursing care system. The folk care system existed long before the professional nursing care system was introduced into this culture. If the discrepancy between these two care systems is great, the client may receive inappropriate nursing care. Culture and subcultures are diverse and dynamic in nature. Nurses need to know the caring behaviors, patterns, and their meaning in their own culture. In Korea we have taken some first step to study cultural nursing phenomena. It is not our intent necessarily to return to the past and develop a nationalistic of nursing, but to identify the core of traditional caring and relate that to professional nursing care. Our Assumptions are as follows : 1) Care is essential for human growth, well being and survival. 2) There are diverse and universal forma, expressions, patterns, and processes of human care that exist transculturally. 3) The behaviors and functions of caring differ according to the social structure of each culture. 4) Cultures have folk and professional care values, beliefs, and practices. To promote the quality of nursing care we must understand the folk care value, beliefs, and practices. We undertook this study to understand caring in our traditional culture. The Goals of this study were as follows : 1) To identify patterns in caring behavior, 2) To identify the structural components of caring, and 3) To understand the meaning and some principles of caring. We failed several questions in this study. Who is the care-giver? Who is the care-recipient? Was the woman the major care-giver at any time? What are the patterns in caring behavior? What are the principles underlying the caring process? We used an interdisciplinary team approach, composed of representatives from nursing and anthropology, to contribute in-depth understanding of caring through a sociocultural perspective. A Field study was conducted in Ro-Bong, a small agricultural kinship village. The subjects were nine women and one man aged bo or more years of age. Data were collected from January 15 to 21, 1990 through open-ended in-depth interviews and observations. The interview focused on caring behaviors surrounding birth, aging, death and child rearing. We analysed these data for meaning, pattern and principles of caring. In this report we describe caring behaviors surrounding childbirth. The care-givers were primarily mothers-in-low, other women in the family older than the mother-to-be, older neighbor woman, husbands, and mothers of the mother-to-be. The care receivers were the mother-to-be the baby, and the immediate family as a component of kinship. Emerging caring behavior included praying, helping proscribing, giving moral advice(Deug-Dam), showing concern, instructing, protecting, making preparations, showing consideration, touching, trusting, encouraging, giving emotional comfort, being with, worrying about, being patient, preventing problems, showing by an example, looking after bringing up, taking care of postnatal health, strong theming the health condition, entering into another's feelings(empathizing), and sharing food, joy and sorrow. The emerging caring component were affection, touching, nurturing, teaching, praying, comforting, encouraging, sharing, empathizing, self-discipline, protecting, preparing, helping and compassion. Emerging principles of caring were solidarity, hierarchical relationships, sex-role distinction. Caring during birth expresses the valve of life and reflects the valued traditional beliefs that human birth is given by god and a unique unifying family event reaching back to include the ancestors and forward to later generations. In addition, We found positive and rational foundations for traditional caring behaviors surrounding birth, these should not be stigmatized as national or superstitious. The nurse appropriately adopts the rational and positive nature of traditional caring behaviors to promote the quality of nursing care.

MeSH Terms

Culture
Humans
Korea
*Medicine, Traditional
*Nursing Care