Dimensions and meaning surrounding the health-disease-care process for mapuche-williche patients with diabetes and hypertension

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in adults in Chile. Comparative epidemiological studies show a relatively greater burden of these diseases amongst the indigenous

population compared to the non-indigenous population.

Objective: To describe the concepts and traditional healing practices that converge in the healing process of mapuche-williche diabetic and hypertensive patients, treated in health facilities located in the jurisdiction of cacicado of Riachuelo, Río Negro.

Material and Methods: exploratory-descriptive study, socio-anthropological in character, part of the interpretive paradigm that articulates the health/disease/care developed by indigenous peoples, and logical positivist biomedicine. Sampling was not probabilistic. Case study and indepth interviews were conducted. An examination of the interview categories was performed to construct interpretations from the sense and meaning that the subjects showed through their discourse and cultural practices.

Results: The mapuche-williche cultural health system is revealed by patients: we see a therapeutic journey that leads them to complement, switch or replace Western medicine with mapuche medicine for the treatment of diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

Conclusions: Cardiovascular diseases conceptualized by the hegemonic medical model are not part of the cultural mapuche-williche matrix, confirming the difficulties in following biomedical treatment for patients coming from areas with a dense indigenous population.