[Study on folk caring in Korea for cultural nursing]

Care is a central concept of nursing. Nursing would not exist without caring. Care and quality of life are closely related. Human behavior is a manifestation of culture. We can say that caring and nursing care are expression of culture. The nurse must understand the relationship of culture with care for ensure quality nursing care. But knowledge of cultural factors in nursing is not well developed. Time and in-depth study are needed to find meaningful relationships between culture and care. Nurses recognized the importance of culturally appropriate nursing. There are two care systems in culturally based nursing. The folk care system and the professional nursing care system. The folk care system existed long before the professional nursing care system was introduced into this culture. If the discrepancy between these two care systems is great, the client may receive inappropriate nursing care. Culture and subcultures are diverse and dynamic in nature. Nurses need to know the caring behaviors, patterns, and their meaning in their own culture. In Korea we have taken some first step to study cultural nursing phenomena. It is not our intent necessarily to return to the past and develop a nationalistic of nursing, but to identify the core of traditional caring and relate that to professional nursing care. Our Assumptions are as follows: 1) Care is essential for human growth, well being and survival. 2) There are diverse and universal forma, expressions, patterns, and processes of human care that exist transculturally. 3) The behaviors and functions of caring differ according to the social structure of each culture. 4) Cultures have folk and professional care values, beliefs, and practices. To promote the quality of nursing care we must understand the folk care value, beliefs, and practices. We undertook this study to understand caring in our traditional culture. The Goals of this study were as follows: 1) To identify patterns in caring behavior, 2) To identify the structural components of caring, and 3) To understand the meaning and some principles of caring. We faced several questions in this study. Who is the care-giver? Who is the care-recipient? Was the woman the major care-giver at any time? What are the patterns in caring behavior? What art the principles underlying the caring process? We used an interdisciplinary team approach, composed of representatives from nursing and anthropology, to contribute in-depth understanding of caring through a sociocultural perspective. A Field study was conducted in Ro-Bong, a small agricultural kinship village.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)