Knitting Answers for Disabilities, Poverty and the Elderly of the Northeastern Hills in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

Introduction: Thoughts on the diversity of health situations performed by elderly, disabled people are usually not the same as those thoughts performed by health professionals; their explanations are more likely the product of cultural and contextual constructions, and of previous health care experiences. Main purpose: Exploring the explanations given by elderly people in disability and poverty –dwellers of five neighbourhoods on the Northeastern hills of Bogotá– to their situation. Method: Ethnographic- qualitative survey. Thirty-nine volunteers older than 60 were chosen; participant observation and ethnographic interviews took place inside their dwelling places. All the information was recorded, transcribed and organized following the proposal of M. Leininger. It was later analysed using the Cultural Care Adversity Theory and the Minayo proposals, among others. Results: explanations made by this age and social group appeared, receiving the name “Understanding health situation” and recognizing manifestations of welfare or discomfort. It was also able to name the situation, give it a meaning and establish cause relations (with psychosocial, socioeconomic and natural origins) in order to try and explain the situation. Conclusions: explanations given by our volunteers to situations called Males by them, show a big amount of complexity and multi-causality. Through these explanations they build a sort of knitting with its own internal logics that helps them in giving sense to their adverse-health experiences. Thus, nurses should prepare themselves to perform a culturally coherent care, a care able to acknowledge wisdom, beliefs and practices of the elderly in order to contribute to the production of knowledge, strategies and plans aimed at particularized health-care, congruent to the population’s diversity.