Beliefs and Traditions That Influence Latinos

The Hispanic culture is very strong on family and religion. The religion that they follow is Roman Catholicism. In this religion, the man is the protector, provider, and decision-maker for the family. The woman is the primary force that holds the family and home together. Spiritual and religious beliefs play a huge role in daily life, health, and illness. The Sick person will use prayer first, then if that doesn’t help they go to a folk person (someone who people in a particular place admire very much because of something they have done), and/or use herbal medicine, then if that still hasn’t helped them they will use prescribed medication they got from a friend, and finally when all that has not worked they will eventually go to an NP or MD.

Regardless of the type of care the patient and family will always have the faith in God to understand the problem and the cure. The Hispanics also believe that you have your hot diseases and your cold diseases.

The cold disease is characterized by vasoconstriction and a slow metabolic rate. The cold diseases are consisting of menstrual cramps, rhinitis, and pneumonia. The hot disease is characterized by vasodilation and a high metabolic rate. Examples of hot diseases are pregnancy, hypertension, diabetes, and acid indigestion. They treat cold diseases with hot medication and hot diseases with cold medications. They believe that this method of treatment help brings the body back into normal balance.

The Hispanic value their family to the fullest.

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a culture the husband is the decision-maker, and the health care provider must respect their culture and belief and communicate with the husband. The health care provider should understand and comply with the patient’s and family’s gender roles. Failure to comply with their beliefs will cause them to be reluctant to receive help, noncompliant, and for seeking help anywhere else. Also, failure to understand and respond to the normative cultural values will have a decreased satisfaction with care, reduced participation in preventive screening, delayed immunizations, inaccurate histories, and use of harmful remedies.

The Hispanics have a difficult time communicating with the health care provider because of the language and cultural barriers. When the Hispanics run into these conflicts they give up and seek help from outside sources. The Hispanics already wait until the person gets the sickest to seek help from a professional health care provider so by them going to seek help from an outside source it might be too late for them and they might die. The health care provider must know about their beliefs and practice! They also need to know that family involvement in health care is common and that it is strongly advised that the family is included in the health care planning.

Hispanic beliefs have a huge impact on their health! Being that the husband makes all decisions; men are reluctant to see a physician for health problems until someone is so ill that the only way to get them better is to go to the doctor. The top leading causes of death in Hispanics are heart diseases, malignant neoplasms, accidents and adverse effects, HIV, homicide, cerebrovascular disease, DM, chronic liver disease, and pneumonia/flu. With these diseases, it is very important to seek care as soon as possible! Being that the man is in charge they do not seek help early enough to treat the problem. The condition is way beyond treatable and there is not much a health care provider can do for that patient at that time. Hispanics also believe that getting the disease is a bigger problem than dying. (Issues of morbidity (disease) rather than mortality(dead) are of greatest concern.)

The Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2016, was 17.8% of the nation’s total population. This percentage makes people of the Hispanic race the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority.

In conclusion, Hispanics have unique beliefs and values, they stand strong behind family, so it is very important to have some knowledge on how they do things to give them the best health care you can give them and have them be more compliant with getting better.

Sources

1. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/hispanic-heritage.html
2. https:/www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/ Hispanic-doctors-nursing-homes.html