HEALTH CARE BELIEFS AND BEHAVIORS OF MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURAL GROUPS
While the United States has long been considered to be a nation of immigrants, the bulk of the newcomers during most of the nation's history were from the various European cultures with which their predecessors also identified. Beginning in the 1960s, however, the proportion of Europeans among immigrants to the United States has steadily decreased. Thus, an ever increasing number of ethnic communities have developed and continue to develop in this country whose social mores are quite different from the European cultural values that tend to characterized the behaviors of the majority of the American population.
One area of endeavor for which this growing diversity in cultural values is of particular significance is nursing (Leininger, 1991, p. 55). Cultural values affect health beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Friedman, 1991, p. 169). To provide effective nursing for members of cultural minorities, nurses must first learn about the relevant cultures and then develop care patterns that are congruent with the values held by the target population (Luna, 1989, p. 22).
This research explores the problems of providing nursing
care for cultural minorities in the United States through a consideration of the cultural values and health beliefs of Middle Eastern cultural groups residing in this country. The developing of care practices is considered within the context of the nursing theory of Sister Calista Roy.
Nursing Theory of Sister Calista Roy
Sister Calista Roy's theory of nursing is commonly known as the adaptation model (Chinn, Jacobs, and Huether, 1991, p. 193). Within the adaptation model, the person is conceived as an adaptive system. "System inputs include (1) three classes of stimuli (focal, contextual, or residual) that arise from within a person and the external environment and (2) adaptation level. Adaptation level i...