Some Health Beliefs of the Spanish Speaking

Abstract

Many Spanish-speaking people living in the southwestern states, Hispanos, continue to observe practices similar to those their ancestors brought from their mother country. Because of isolation, even in cities where they tend to live in compounds or barrios, the Spanish language and customs prevail. In the extended family household, the older members guide the younger in many of their practices and decisions. These descendants of the first European explorers on this continent are found throughout the Southwest and are only one group of the Spanish-speaking people. Among the Spanish-speaking, some variation in beliefs occurs, but a common core of traditional practices does exist. It is important for nurses to recognize not only the existenice but also the persistence of the practice of folk medicine and to realize that when the scientific preventive health measures and treatment of illness they teach are incompatible with this system, persons are apt to reject that which is foreign and contrary to their own tradition. These cultures seem to provide no definition of health per se, but there are characteristics which differentiate a healthy person from a sick