Abstract

Purpose

People with chronic illness develop their own formulations about the disease and these attributions influence their health beliefs and subsequent health practices. This study explores the causal health beliefs and practices of tobacco-related cancer patients in the state of Assam considering their unique cultural health practices. The study uses Kleinman’s Explanatory Model for an extensive understanding of the patient’s health beliefs about their illness.

Methods

By adopting Explanatory Sequential Mixed design, 100 participants were interviewed in the quantitative phase of the study followed by 11 in-depth interviews in the qualitative phase.

Results

The study reveals that, among different factors internal and/or external to an individual, the participants highly attributed their illness to accidental/chance and/or supernatural factors (52%). Also, cancer fatalism was highly prevalent among the participants. Further, the majority of the participants with wrong beliefs, misinformation, and fear of cancer were uncertain about the success of their cancer-specific treatment. These participants were highly dependent on God concerning their future health.

Conclusions

The study suggests the need for designing cancer-education programmes and spreading mass awareness by engaging both modern and indigenous cancer care providers in addressing the health-seeking behavior and practices of the people of Barak Valley.

中文翻译：

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印度阿萨姆邦烟草相关癌症患者的因果健康属性和信念

摘要

目的

患有慢性病的人对疾病有自己的看法，这些归因会影响他们的健康信念和随后的健康实践。本研究探讨了阿萨姆邦与烟草相关的癌症患者的因果健康信念和实践，考虑到他们独特的文化健康实践。该研究使用 Kleinman 的解释模型来广泛了解患者对其疾病的健康信念。

方法

通过采用解释性顺序混合设计，100 名参与者在研究的定量阶段接受了采访，随后在定性阶段进行了 11 次深入采访。

结果

研究表明，在个体内部和/或外部的不同因素中，参与者将他们的疾病高度归因于意外/偶然和/或超自然因素（52%）。此外，癌症宿命论在参与者中非常普遍。此外，大多数有错误信念、错误信息和害怕癌症的参与者都不确定他们的癌症特异性治疗是否成功。这些参与者在未来的健康方面高度依赖上帝。

结论

该研究表明，需要设计癌症教育计划并通过让现代和本土癌症护理提供者参与解决巴拉克谷人民的健康寻求行为和实践来传播大众意识。