Health and illness beliefs, health behavior and choice of medicine and its use among Asian Indian immigrants

The purpose of this study was to familiarize health care practitioners with the health and illness beliefs and health behavior of Asian Indian immigrants so as to enable them to provide culturally appropriate care to this population. The research questions aimed to find the health and illness beliefs, health behavior, choice of medicine and the hierarchy of resort to different medical practices and the expectations of Asian Indian immigrants from their health care providers.; The study was an exploratory study employing ethnographic methods to collect data. These included interviews and observations. The study sample included twenty-one immigrants from all walks of life from India. They were recruited using the snowballing technique.; Results. Asian Indian immigrants consider health to be a very important aspect of life. These health beliefs influence decision making related to preventive health. Depending on the beliefs about the status of their own health, people take measures to either promote their health or to prevent future illness. These practices however differed by age, gender and health status. Asian Indian immigrants also use a variety of treatment options to either prevent future illness or to treat an existing illness. These vary from home made remedies to Indian medical systems such as ayurveda, homeopathy or naturopathy, to western medicine to other alternative practices such as acupressure, acupuncture and chiropractic therapy. The order in which they use these alternatives is not consistent but generally depends on health and illness beliefs, severity of illness, type of illness, prior experience with an illness, cost of medicine and length of stay in the US. Compliance with medications was found to be an issue with this group of immigrants because of the general belief that medications are bad. The Asian Indian immigrants have mixed feelings about their experiences with the health care providers in the US. Many of them like the openness between the practitioners and the patients here but have mixed feelings about the idea of autonomy of patients with the patient having to make decisions about their own health care. Further research is required to fully understand the health behavior of this population.