Multicultural Assessment Paper & Lab.
How is illness understood and interpreted by patients, by health professionals, by family, etc? What do these individuals believe are the causes of illness?.
Bangladesh is predominantly a Muslim country, and mental health is not very well understood in this country. First of all it is poor country and has strong religious value where they believe that religion protects them from any kind of illness. Inquiring with a Bangladeshi woman who gave me her views and ideas some of them I am going to discuss in this paper especially the one related with mental health.
Five basic duties or pillars constitute the external form of the worship. These include: .
1) Shahadah (a deep understanding and verbal acceptance of oneness of Allah and prophet Mohammad (pbuh) as the final messenger), .
2) Salah (5 compulsory daily prayers), .
3) Zakah (giving charity to the poor),.
4) Fasting (abstaining from eating and drinking during the month of Ramadan), and .
5) Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca, if means provide). .
They believe that their faith would protect them from any kind of illness as well as manage them when they occur. ). Amongst Muslims there is a strong tendency to conceptualize illness as occurring according to the will of God (Allah), who is understood to be a higher power that cannot be perceived by the senses. They believe that mental health is not a medical disorder but something which is far beyond explanations. She presented a case where someone she knew was mentally ill, and instead of taking medical help he was referred to some religious healer that they thought had more power than any medical healer would have. She said that often people resort to black magic to marry someone. That is called 'Jadhu' [a form of black magic] and all this is done by the Kabiraj [practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine; the term is sometimes also used for practitioners of black magic].
